


The Perils of Turkey Day

by crossingwinter, StormDancer



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Captain America (Movies), Game of Thrones (TV), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: A little bit of fluff, Alternate Universe - Avengers, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Always blame Theon, Beta Pairing: Arya Stark/Gendry, Beta Pairing: Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Beta Pairing: Jon Snow/Ygritte, Beta Pairing: Robb Stark/Theon Greyjoy - ish..., F/M, Family, Gesticulatory Silverware, Humor, If only we could have a director's commentary for this fic..., In which Catelyn is Molly Weasley, In which Catelyn likes Jon, In which Sansa is the HBIC, It was gonna happen..., M/M, Multi, Pie is good, R+L is J, Thanksgiving, The most amalgamated back story ever, Too many turkeys, We are Ironborn - We live in Lake Superior, a little bit of angst, bad metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:32:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 38,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter, https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Oh boy.  Here we go.  Thanksgiving with the Starks.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The inspiration for this came from the image floating around tumblr (see below).  
> We regret nothing.

****

**Saturday**

“He’s bringing someone.”

“A date?”

“Not exactly.”

“I won’t have my children exposed to one of his bimbos.  Robb hasn’t forgotten the last one.”

“I haven’t forgotten the last one. But don’t worry. It’s not—I think you’ll like this one.”

“I’d better.  Or I’m throwing both of them out of the house.  I don’t need more stress this Thanksgiving.”

“Because he never makes more stress.”

Catelyn sighed.  “Here we go.  Thanksgiving with the Starks.  You’d think I’d be used to it after all these years.”

She hung up the phone.  This was going to be a long week.


	2. 1. Sunday

“Where is Arya?”

“Haven’t seen her,” shrugged Robb.

“She would disappear right now.  Can’t she ever be where she’s supposed to be?” demanded Sansa, looking up from her iPhone.  Probably texting Jeyne Poole again.

Catelyn sighed.  Part of her wished desperately that they hadn’t put Sansa on an unlimited texting plan.  It had, of course, seemed like a good idea at the time—a money saver.  But now of course, Sansa's phone was always in hand.  She could be planning world domination with the amount of information she sent out of that thing.  


“I’m here, I’m here, don’t get your panties in a twist!” Arya darted in from the kitchen, panting hard. She wiped her hands on her jeans and got in line next to her sister.

“I’m not even going to ask you where you’ve been.” Catelyn let out a resigned breath.  “Rickon, do _not_ wipe your nose on your sleeve.”

Rickon rolled his eyes. “But Arya’s jeans are dirty!” he protested.

“And that’s not okay either.” Catelyn turned a glare onto her younger daughter. “Didn’t I ask you to change?”

“But then I wouldn’t have been on time,” Arya pointed out, all reason. She was far too much her father’s daughter. “You didn’t want me to be late, did you?”

“She has a point, mom,” Robb agreed. “And you know he doesn’t care what we wear.”

He didn’t, but that was hardly the point.  But Cat took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be much good if she killed her children before it started. Well, most of her children.

“Are you alright?” Bran had yet to say anything since she had wheeled him out. He had been soft spoken before the accident, but he had never been _this_  quiet. “Are you cold? I can get a—”

“He’s fine, mom,” Robb inserted. He put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and squeezed. “He’d say if he wasn’t.”

“It’s okay,” Bran agreed. His expression was solemn, eyes too big in his small face. Catelyn’s heart squeezed.  He was always so solemn now, always so aged. She had used to joke he was her little man, always older than his fourteen years, but she had never thought it would come true so soon.  

“Stop fretting, Cat.  You always over think this,” smiled Ned. It was an easy, normal smile, though Cat could see the tension in his shoulders as he gazed at the door.

“He’s going to be late anyway. He’s _always_ late,” grumbled Arya.

“He’s busy,” Robb shot back. “He’s got things to do and people to see and—”

“And girls to fuck?” Sansa suggested sweetly.

“Sansa Stark!” Cat snapped even as Rickon burst out giggling. “That is not language we use here.”

“But it’s true.” Sansa shrugged, and went back to her phone.

In her ear, Ned chuckled. “It is,” he muttered. Cat held back a laugh.  


At that moment, the doorbell rang.  

“He’s he-re,” Rickon chanted ominously. Cat shot him a significant look as Ned stepped forward. The door swung open to reveal a man with dancing eyes in a sharply tailored suit.  


“How are my favorite runts!” he cried, his thousand-watt, paparazzi approved smile flashing as bright as the light that shone through his shirt.

The line broke.  Rickon threw himself at his uncle, Sansa put away her phone and moved in for a hug, Arya beat her there, and Robb extended his hand, a startlingly similar smile on his face.  Only Bran stayed back, and Cat could see out of the corner of her eye that it was only because he couldn’t get closer in his chair.

“Tony,” Ned said, clapping his brother on the back and pulling him inside through the horde of children. “Good to see you.”

“You too. God, this house is in the middle of nowhere. I always forget that. Vermont, Ned, really? You didn't feel the need to get away, did you?”

“It’s beautiful up here,” Ned replied simply.

“It’s beautiful in New York where there’s, you know, cell service. Not that I don’t have cell service, but I have service everywhere, it's one of the perks of being me."  


“You have no appreciation for nature.”

“Cat deemed it time to intervene.  "Hello,” she said, smiling warmly at the man who had been standing, until just then, a step behind her brother-in-law.

He smiled back, a handsome, sincere expression on a face from the past.  She could almost imagine him on the decks of some battleship in a Robert Mitchum film.  Blonde hair, blue eyes, broad shoulders, and a soldier’s posture.  She didn’t have to ask who he was.  She’d seen him on television in May when the aliens had come to New York.  "Hello, ma'am."  


“Cat, please.”

“None whatsoever. Pepper scolds me about it about once a week. Oh right,” Tony turned from his brother to the man and pulled him in, so Ned could close the door behind them. “Everybody, this is Steve Rogers. He’s crashing our Thanksgiving. Steve, this is everyone.”

“Tony,” Steve hissed, at the exact same time that Ned muttered, in the exact same tone, “Tony, manners!”

“Oh god, guys, you aren’t my dad. You especially.” He stabbed a finger at Steve. “You, though, are starting to resemble him.” He pointed at Ned, who rolled his eyes. “But fine. Everyone, this is Steve Rogers, aka Captain America—though not here. Steve, this is Ned, Catelyn, and the runts.”

“I’m taller than you, Uncle Tony.” Robb extended his hand to Steve.  “Robb,” he smiled.  “That’s Sansa, Arya, Rickon and Bran.”  He pointed to each of them, soliciting a smile or a wave in response. Sansa also added in a blush. Catelyn supposed there were worse men to blush at than Captain America.  


“Robb, take their things upstairs.  Why don’t you show Steve his room?  Arya, go change, then help me with dinner.  Sansa—”

“Oh, no, ma’am, it’s no trouble.” Steve picked up the bags before Robb could.

“Cat,” she corrected him pointedly. He grinned, flushed.

“No, Cat, it’s no trouble at all,” he repeated.

Tony looked at him with the sort of proud fondness one might reserve for a pet doing a particularly interesting trick, though with a certain softness Cat wasn't sure she'd seen before.  “He’s so polite,” he stage-whispered to Ned over Arya’s head, “I can’t figure it out.”

“It’s called not saying everything that pops into your head,” Steve retorted calmly, and turned to Robb. “Lead on.”

“It’s this way. Is it true you fought Nazis?” Robb asked as they went upstairs, with Rickon trailing after them. His face had lit up at the mention of the Avengers.   


“Is Ben getting here today or tomorrow?” demanded Tony.

“Tuesday.”

“So far away.  What’s he got that’s so important?”

Ned shrugged.  “I never ask.”

“I could get away.  And I’m CEO of Stark Enterprises. Well, Pepper is, but I do a lot. Also, I’m Iron Man.  Couldn’t Benjen get away from wandering the woods for a few days?”

“You’ll have to ask him when he gets here.”

“I will.”

“Can I get you a drink, Uncle Tony?”

_“Sansa!”_

Sansa rolled her eyes.  “I know how to mix drinks, mom.”

“Don’t need it, anyway.” Ned and Cat both shot interested looks at Tony. “Yeah, I’m trying the whole dry thing. Hard to fight crime wasted. Not impossible, but then Cap scowls at me and Natasha tries to kill me and Bruce gives me his disappointed face, so it’s hard. Thor understands, but he’s got the whole god thing. Anyway, water.  Or a pepsi if you got one.”

Cat’s eyebrows rose as she exchanged significant glances with Ned. They had been trying

“So, Bran my man, how’s it hanging?” Tony bent down, punched Bran’s fist.  “Winning all the high school ladies’ hearts?”

“Not so much.” Bran made an irritated gesture towards the chair.

“Dude, no, you’re going about this all wrong.” Tony moved behind the chair and started to wheel him towards the kitchen. “Extra hardware is always good. Trust me. The more metal, the better. You just gotta play the sympathy card right. We’ll work on it; I am an expert in this subject.”

Cat leaned her head into Ned’s chest, breathing in the pine-and-musk smell that was her husband.

“You always make a big deal of it, every year, and it’s always fine,” he murmured into her hair.

“I know.  He’s like that, though.”

She felt Ned chuckling under her forehead.  “You’re telling me?  I had to grow up with him.” Ned paused. “Well, when he wasn’t at school.”

“That I will never envy you.”

“So empathetic, you are.”

“You know me too well.”  She looked up at him, his long thin face, his big grey eyes.  Those eyes he shared with Benjen but not Tony, the eyes that were lidded and lazy and she knew he was going to press a kiss to her lips before he did.

“Ewww.  Grown ups kissing!” Tony’s voice rang out from the hallway to the kitchen.

“Jeez, mom, dad.  We don’t need to see that.”  She heard a grin in Bran’s voice and pulled away from Ned to see it.

He was so beautiful, her second son, so beautiful when he smiled, when he laughed.  And he was smiling now, for the first time in months.  Her heart sang. She could forgive Tony years of debauchery, years of her heart falling out of her chest when she turned on the TV to see Iron Man swooping through the air, for that sweet, playful smile.

 

*

“So Steve—” Mrs. Stark (and that felt odd to think, maybe a bit painful, even though it was ridiculous) paused, smiled into her glass of lemonade. “I would ask you what you did, but that doesn’t seem quite appropriate, does it?”

Steve smiled back at her. “It’s fine, ma’am. Cat,” he corrected himself. People were so much more informal now, it seemed. Or maybe it was just the Starks—the first time he had tried to call Tony ‘Stark’, he had gotten snapped at, then laughed at. “I don’t mind talking about it.”

“It’s just that you are rather an enigma.  Tony—” she shot a glance down the table to where Tony was playing three-way chess with her two youngest sons (and winning, by the looks of it), “often neglects to pass on the salient details of what his colleagues actually do— or, in your case, did—before they pulled you from the ice, I mean.”

“I was a dancing monkey,” Steve replied with a crooked smile, and took a sip of his own lemonade. It was good, tangy and sweet, almost like his mother had used to make it.

Mrs. Stark laughed, softly. “Which means...”

“I was in the army. Mainly as propaganda, at the beginning—”

“Thus the dancing monkey.”

“Exactly. But then I did get to the front lines, eventually.” Steve usually found it good policy to stop there. Good policy, and that stopped him from dredging up anything he didn’t want to remember. This was a time for family—or, at least, for Tony’s family, for all Tony had insisted that he should count them as his own ‘because really, there’s enough of them to go around’—not flashbacks.  There was nowhere to retreat to here, not like the Tower where he could flee to his room, or even Tony's workshop where he could drown himself in theclatter of work and Tony's voice.   


“Sounds—I can’t say interesting. I’m sorry. It sounds awful.” Her eyes flicked from her sons, to her husband, then back to her oldest, who was sitting at the counter and staring at his computer. “I’m too much of a mother.”

“And a good one.  Your children seem lovely." Steve leaned back in his chair.  She was a small woman (though admittedly, he found all women small, now), and she looked tired.  He had the distinct sensation that she was listening to every single conversation in the room, focusing on each of them in their own right, but in a way that did not leave him by the wayside.  He was sure she could tell him precisely where Rickon had just moved his piece, or what Arya was complaining about to her father, or what Robb had just said over Skype to the girl with curly brown hair.

“Don’t say that too soon.  You haven’t seen them for more than a couple of hours.  They turn into monsters by day three.”

Steve chuckled.  “I’ve dealt with the Avengers on sugar highs. I really don’t think your children can be worse than that.”

“That is the basest of slanders, and I will not stand for it.” Tony appeared next to Steve and slid onto a stool, then stole Steve’s glass to take a sip.  Steve moved his eyes pointedly away from his throat, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed. “We were not on a sugar high, we were infected by a Doctor Doom ray thingy.”

“Ray thingy?” Steve echoed, amused.

“I am using the informal term for you non-scientists. Do you want the technical specifics?”

Steve held up his hands in laughing surrender. “I’m good. But the SHIELD techs said that the closest analogy they could make was a sugar high.”

“But it wasn’t, and that makes all the difference.”

Robb had perked up from behind his computer, and slid closer. “I didn’t hear about this. What happened?”

“Well, we had just—”

“Dinner.” Mrs. Stark cut off the story before it could begin, and stood up. Behind her back, Tony mouthed ‘tell you later’ to her son. “Arya, Rickon, go set the table. Robb, go find your sister.”

“Anything I can do to help?” asked Steve.  He didn't like just sitting.  He was the one intruding, after all.  


“No, no.  You’re a guest.  Just have a seat and we’ll take care of you.  Ned, have you seen the strainer?”

“Isn’t it in the cabinet?” replied Ned.

“No.”

“Then I don’t know.  Arya, were you using it earlier?”

Arya rolled her eyes loudly—if that was possible.

“It might still be in the dishwasher?” suggested Bran through the door from his seat at the dining room table.

A moment later, Mrs. Stark had the strainer in hand and Tony was applauding Bran lightly.  “Bravo, sir, bravo. See, I’m telling you, pair of eyes, way more use than anything else. See, Cap there, got all the muscles and everything. His best superpower? Super senses. Can’t get anything by him. Clint and I, we do experiments, but it never works."  


Steve rolled his eyes, met Ned’s halfway through doing the same thing. But Tony was grinning and Bran was smiling—which Steve figured was the point, even if Tony would never, ever admit that—so he didn’t comment on how actually, he thought the muscles were a lot of help when throwing the shield. And when he happened to wander out of the shower as Tony was coming up the stairs, and he could see Tony’s eyes go wide and he would freeze, then dart back down the stairs. Which, admittedly, he often would only notice with enhanced senses. So maybe Tony was right.

“Yes, yes, Bran keeps all our heads on straight.” Mrs. Stark gave her son a soft smile, then turned back to the rest of her children. She was as good a general as any he’d ever seen, directing sons, daughters, husband, and Tony with a keen tactical eye and precision timing. It was that skill, and that skill alone, Steve estimated, that got them all to the table in less than ten minutes, with a huge bowl of pasta and equally large pot of beef stew steaming in the center.

“So,” Ned began, spooning a sizable helping of stew onto his plate, “How have you kept this one,” he jerked his head at Tony, “in line?  That is a Herculean task, and one that I have failed at for the past—how old am I?”

“As ancient as these middle of nowhere mountains.” Everyone ignored Tony’s contribution.

“You’re forty-five, dad,” supplied Sansa.

“For the past forty-five years,” continued Ned.  “The only one who could keep him in line—ever—was Lyanna.”

“Lyanna?” asked Steve. That was a name he hadn’t heard before, and he had thought he had heard about most of Tony’s family—and the skeletons in his closet. He chanced a glance across the table at Tony, but he was staring into his plate, with the same closed off look he got when people discussed Afghanistan, or those weeks when he and Pepper fell apart and Steve could only watch as the man who was quickly becoming his best friend grew brittle and cold. Then Tony looked up, and he wore the bright, painfully fake grin that he usually wore at society functions.

“My twin sister. She died—what, twenty years ago? I don’t know. Anyway, that’s not true at all. She never kept me in line. And when did you ever try?” The fork he jabbed at Ned was more vicious than teasing. “You were off doing your boarding school thing with Robert Baratheon.  Never had time to keep me in line, old fella.”

“You went to boarding school too,” Ned remarked, with commendable patience. He seemed to accept Tony’s less than subtle change of subject, but his gaze was steady and understanding on his brother.

“Yeah, yeah, but I went to special genius-freaks boarding school, not jock school, and anyway, I wasn’t home any more than you.  How would you know how I was kept in line? Why do I need to be kept in line, anyway? I am the liniest of lines.”

Steve’s eyebrows flew upwards. “Really?” he drawled.  Sansa giggled. “What about the time with Namor and the double-bodied octopus?”

“I heard that, young lady.”  Tony waggled his fork at Sansa.  “You’re family, you’re supposed to be on my side. Stop charming my nieces,” he shot at Steve, and his grin flashed, easy and real again, the one it felt like he saved for the Avengers, for Steve, without that edge of pain and cold that had come with Lyanna. “It’s not fair.”

Sansa rolled her eyes.  “Oh please,” she snorted, “He didn’t charm me.  He was honest.  Honesty is the best way to getting support in this family,” she informed Tony, “That’s why Robb’s been having so much trouble since he got home for break.”

“Hey!” snapped Robb.  “I’ve been being perfectly honest, thank you very much.”

“Oh?  How come you won’t tell us what you and Theon did on Thursday night, even though it very clearly is still troubling you?”

Robb’s jaw dropped.  “How did you know about that?”

This time, it was Arya who snorted.  “Did you think you were being subtle?  Because if so, let me tell you something—I think even Jeyne Poole noticed, and she hasn’t seen you since you got back.”

“What happened, Robb?” asked Rickon.

“Yeah?  What happened?” Sansa was resting her head on her hands, smiling in a disgustingly sweet way at her brother.

“Tell us!” Tony mirrored Sansa’s pose and smile with almost disturbing accuracy.  


Robb looked petrified.  He glanced at his mother and took a deep breath.

“I don’t want to know,” cut in Ned firmly.  “I don’t want to ever find out.  If it must be discussed, please wait until I am most happily asleep, out of the room, or dead.  But not before then.”

“It’s okay, he’ll tell me,” Tony chirped. “I’m excited. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s that anything worth doing results in siblings teasing you about it at the dinner table. Remember the time with Benjen and the goat?”

“I also remember the time that you got stuck in the toilet at Fenway Park,” smiled Ned.

“Okay, that is also not cool, did I bring up when you—you—damn it, you were boring.  You never did anything.  I did not bring up the time _Brandon_ got trapped naked on the flight to Paris and Lyanna had to lend him her sweatpants.”

“How about when Lyanna snuck Robert into the house and he had to hide in the closet until dad went to sleep?”

“And we all sat in the hall and insulted him!” Tony burst out laughing, big loud belly laughs that made his face light up and Steve's stomach flip. “That was classic.”

“Over-large, over-sexed buffoon.”  Ned was practically hooting.  

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard dad make that noise,” Arya muttered to Bran.  Bran shook his head.

“Only when Uncle Tony’s around.”

“It’s because I make him remember when he wasn’t all old and fuddy-duddy,” Tony observed, and reached around Rickon to poke Ned in the side.

“Fuddy-duddy?” Was Ned’s only response, with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I heard it, I know, I blame Steve. His forties lingo is rubbing off on me.”

Robb snorted.  Sansa kicked him under the table.  “Not appropriate.”

“What’s not appropriate?” demanded Rickon.

“Never you mind,” said Sansa.

“Okay then!” called Mrs. Stark.  Steve could feel the flush rising into his cheeks. One would think that after a year of living with the Avengers—with Clint—with _Tony_ —he would be immune to innuendo, but it seemed that the only thing that had happened was that he was now aware enough to blush. Especially when it came with Tony. Or with Tony and him. “Robb, why don’t you tell Uncle Tony what you are studying.”

Robb rolled his eyes.  “I don’t think Uncle Tony will care about my Poli Sci classes, mom.”

“Yeah, Uncle Tony doesn’t care about his Poli Sci classes,” agreed Tony, “Uncle Tony would much rather hear about sophomore year antics, like what Robb got up to with Theon on Thursday night.” Robb’s groan was audible around the table.

“I’m going to the bathroom.  I want this topic of conversation over by the time I get back,” announced Ned. He got up, decisively pushed his chair in, and walked deliberately out of the room. A door swung shut.

Sansa turned to Robb. She looked terrifyingly like Black Widow at that moment, just before she took out a mark—red hair and dangerous smile. “So...” she prompted.

“Well—”

“Before you say anything,” Mrs. Stark said, with a long-suffering sigh in her voice, “Tell me this first. Is this something your brothers shouldn’t hear?”

Robb paused, looked between his brothers, then back at his mother. “Which one?”

Tony clapped his hands, delighted. “I am so excited to hear this.”  Mrs. Stark’s glare was rather terrifying and Steve wondered if he should go to the bathroom too.

Robb took a deep breath, met Sansa’s eye squarely and said “Theon and I got a little bit drunk with some friends and ended up in Acton without really remembering how we got there.”

“Pfff.” Tony blew out a disappointed breath. “That is not nearly as debauched as I had hoped. Robb, you are letting me down.”

“Robb Stark, you are twenty years old.  What were you doing drinking?”

“I drink at home all the time, mom.” He held up his beer bottle in demonstration.

“Yes, but that’s where your father and I can limit how much you drink, and you don’t have to worry about the police.  What if you had been caught?”

Robb shrugged and pulled out his wallet.  He opened it and handed her a driver’s license.

Mrs. Stark raised her eyebrows.  “I did not realize that I was twelve when I had you, Waymar Royce.”

Robb smiled slightly.  “Can I have that back?”

“No.”

“I spent good money on that, mom.”

“Well, take this as a lesson.  Don’t give your mother your fake ID, Robb.”

“Yeah, don’t give your mother your fake ID, Robb,” grinned Tony.  Steve saw him slip a card to Robb under the table.

“Clint Barton?” asked Robb.

“I steal it when he gets cheeky,” shrugged Tony.  Which explained why Tony was so often without an ID, if that was the competition they had going on. "No, though, that’ll probably set off all sort of SHIELD alarms if you use it. Talk to me later, I know a guy.”

“Tony...” Steve wasn’t going to interfere with family, but he also did not think that facilitating illegal underage drinking was a good idea.

“But—” Tony glanced at Steve. Steve put on his best stern face, the one that even Tony, who had a distinct and fairly obvious skill at wheedling his way out of Steve’s orders, had learned to fear. “Fine. Sorry, Robb. You’re on your own with this one.”

Robb sighed and grimaced.  

“All right, I declare this conversation over,” Ned returned. “Someone, introduce a new topic.”

Robb adopted an expression that looked eerily like the one that Sansa had just pulled when interrogating him.  “So, Uncle Tony—any new conquests lately?  You’ve been out of the gossip magazines, or so my floormates tell me.”

Steve froze midway through taking a bite of the stew. He didn’t want to hear this. He really, really, did not want to hear this. Tony had been good, since Pepper, had been discreet enough that Steve could just ignore the fact that Tony probably was having a lot of...well, a lot of sex, because he was Tony Stark and that was what he did. Steve looked resolutely down at his stew.

Tony chuckled, but it was slow and a little high pitched. “Come now, you know I don’t kiss and tell. Not that there’s been kissing. At all. Pepper made me see the light of monogamy. The monogamous light, that is. It’s golden and sort of like a heat lamp.” Or, Steve supposed, blue and electric and modern and everything confusing, everything brilliant about this new world. “That is where I am. Right now. Not in the gossip columns.” Steve let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding, though something still roiled in his stomach. Tony wasn’t having sex? Or maybe he just didn’t want to tell his family about it.

Arya snorted.  “That’s the worst metaphor I’ve ever heard, and I’m in tenth grade English.  I’ve heard a _lot_ of bad metaphors.”

“It was pretty despicable, Uncle Tony,” sighed Robb, looking rather disappointed.

“I mean,” continued Arya, “‘the monogamous light’?  Really?  That’s almost as bad as soul-mates and one true love, but a little less clichéd and a little more stupid.  I never took you for an idiot, Uncle Tony.”  Her tone turned light.

“And that is why I do machines,” Tony shot back. “They don’t complain when I’m bad with the speaking thing. Well, JARVIS does, but that’s because he’s a little bit of a bastard.”

“Tony!” Steve snapped again, half-unconsciously, “language!”

“C’mon, Rickon doesn’t mind, do you?”

“Bastard’s not a bad word.  Jon’s a bastard.”

Robb began to laugh.  “That’s not really the term we use these days, Rick.”

“Jon?” asked Steve, surprised at yet another Stark name with which he was unfamiliar.

“Lyanna’s son,” supplied Ned.  “We raised him after she died.  He’s doing a year abroad though, so he won’t be home.  He’s in the _real_ great white north, as he likes to refer to it.”

“Russia,” murmured Catelyn.  “Moscow.”

“You know, that kid I met up with after that mission in Siberia,” Tony supplied.

“That’s where you went?” He had disappeared, Steve had worried and gnawed at his lip until he had returned, apparently no worse for wear but without any explanation for where he had gone. Steve had always figured it was to a bar, or something, because that had been where Tony disappeared to, in those days.

“I didn’t say?” Tony shrugged. “Yeah, I went to see Jon. Good kid. Cute girlfriend.”

Robb looked as though he was torn between strangling Tony, and flinching and hiding in a corner. Steve could sympathize.

“Girlfriend?” demanded Arya slowly, her voice very quiet but almost painfully audible.  “Jon never mentioned a girlfriend.”  She glared at Robb.

“I might have been mistaken.  She was Russian.  It was all very Slavic,” backtracked Tony, who might have had no tact but was at least quick on the uptake. “You never know with Slavs. Natasha—Black Widow—she’s Slavic, and we never know what she’s up to, right Steve? She’s just there and then poof she’s not and if magic wasn’t so goddamn illogical and not okay I would say she was. This one time—”

“So Robb.” Ned cut his brother off with the ease of long practice. “Tell us about Jon’s girlfriend.”

Robb took a deep breath.  He seemed to be doing that a lot this evening, Steve noticed.  Then he said carefully, “I don’t know if girlfriend is the right term.  There’s this girl he’s close to, and he was trying to figure it out...”

“That’s a feeble lie, Robb Stark,” growled Arya, who was clearly affronted that she had not known about her cousin’s girlfriend.

“Look, talk to him about it, all right?” Robb held up both his hands, palms out. “I’m not his keeper.”

“Clearly not, if Thursday’s anything to go by,” Tony muttered into Arya’s ear, loud enough for everyone to hear.

Sansa nearly snorted out her sip of water.

 

*

“You all right?” she whispered.  Ned glanced up from his book.  He was reading _Bleak House_ again.  It was always trouble when he read _Bleak House_.

“Fine.  Fine.  Just Tony.”

“Just Tony,” she sighed. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about Robb.  I am scared to know what he gets up to in college.”

“He’s like Brandon was.  All action, no thought.  Brandon got out of it fine.”

“I wouldn’t worry, except he wants to be like Tony.  I think that’s a bad combination.” She lay back onto the pillows, rested her head on her husband’s shoulder.

“He’ll be all right.  He could do a lot worse.”  He paused a moment, and closed his book, placing it on his bedside table.

“Sansa seemed to be doing all right at dinner.”

“Hmm.  I think she’ll be all right.  Just needs to keep her head down.  I think Tony’s friend might just be able to restore her faith in humanity.  He’s quite the fellow.”

“Right. Friend.” Catelyn pursed her lips, blew out a breath. “Is that all they are? There was—I don’t know, something.”

“You mean the ‘monogamous light’ thing?” Ned chuckled. “Because honestly that was what did it for me.  I'm pretty excited to see the fall out.”

“No, it’s other things too. You notice that he listened to Steve? He doesn’t listen to anyone.” Despite years of trying, Cat didn’t bother adding. “And there were looks. Lots of looks.”

Ned’s expression turned wolfish.  “Like this look?”

Catelyn’s laugh purred out of her. “No. That look’s all mine.”

 

*

“So I did not need to hear my brother having sex with his wife.” Tony, as usual, did not see fit to start a conversation with pleasantries. Steve had gotten used to it. He stepped aside and let Tony into the room. “I never realized the problem with my room being close to the master bedroom until now. I mean, props to them for still having the drive and all after twenty-odd years of marriage. But still.” He sat down on the bed as if it were his right. Steve turned quickly away, studied the ornately carved wardrobe.

“They seem solid,” he observed, and did not think about Tony on his bed.

“Oh, they are, the most solid ever. It’s a little frightening, just how solid they are.” Tony sighed, got up, paced. The arc reactor cast shadows on the wall. “I always kind of wanted to be them, you know, when I was with Pepper. They were my role model, you could say." He pressed his lips together, then shrugged. "Guess I’m not my brother.  Big surprise there.”

“No,” agreed Steve, “but that’s not a bad thing.”   Ned was a nice man, respectable, but Tony—Tony was light and color and excitement and laughter and he just drew Steve along with him without even noticing, inevitable and irresistible as a whirlwind.  

“Sure. Thanks. I think.” He sounded a little breathless. Steve turned to look at him, but he was looking out the window, at the snow-crested mountains in the distance. It was odd, how he looked here—it wasn’t his place, this place with its feeling of age and tradition, but he seemed to slide in, somehow, different and yet not apart. His eyebrows were drawn, so a crease ran down the center of his forehead. Then he shook his head, and when he looked back at Steve his blinding grin was back on his face. “Anyway, I was talking to Robb after dinner, and I got the full scoop on Thursday night.”

“Oh?” asked Steve, raising his eyebrows.  He still wasn't entirely sure he wanted to know.  


“Oh yes.”  There was a maniacal glint to his eyes.  A maniacal and _proud_ glint.  He definitely did not want to know.  “He and his friend Theon ended up in Acton at a girl’s place.  They got super shitfaced and had a three-way—I’ve corrupted you enough you know what that is, right? Apparently Theon got the couch, but Robb ended up naked on the side of a road in twenty-degree weather.  He still isn’t sure how, and he’s even less sure of how he made it back to Cambridge.” Tony clutched at his heart. “My little nephew. All grown up and having sex scandals.”

“You approve?” Steve couldn’t help the judgment in his voice. He knew Tony had—well, had a checkered past, he had learned how to use the internet, but he didn’t even want to begin to consider Tony in those sorts of scandals. Or approving of them in his nephew.  He liked to at least pretend Tony had changed, had become someone who could consider settling down.  


“I mean, I guess not? Not the best idea in the long term, just look at how I ended up, but he’s a kid.” Tony shrugged. “He should have his fun.”

“And sex with a woman and another man is fun?”

Tony’s grin shifted into an unmistakable leer. It was his usual, playful flirting that he did with everyone, Steve knew that, had trained himself to know that—but his stomach still did interesting things. Shit. “If you know how to do it right.”

Steve blinked. He hadn’t wanted to imagine that—but if Tony was there, _and_ a woman—was that better? Was that—

“Anyway.” The leer disappeared into a friendly clap on the back. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t traumatized by my family. See you tomorrow.”

And then Steve was left alone with a large bed and images that would not make it easy to get to sleep. 


	3. 2. Monday

After six months of living with the Avengers, Steve had more or less stopped being surprised in the morning.  Clint hanging upside down from the ceiling eating his cereal. Okay. Thor naked. Okay. New, semi-sentient juicer, because Tony didn’t really sleep and tended to engineer the weirdest things at three AM. Okay. So when he walked into the Stark kitchen and saw someone sitting at the counter who definitely wasn’t there last night and definitely wasn’t related to any of the Starks, with Tony grinning at him like he did at his newest inventions, Steve took the sensible route and detoured to the fridge.

“What is going on?” came Mrs. Stark’s voice behind him. She sounded less stern than resigned, and Steve had the distinct impression that this had happened before.

“This is Gendry!” Tony announced, as proudly as if he had created the boy himself. “He works at the garage on Main Street.  Can I keep him?”

Gendry grimaced slightly, looking embarrassed, and said “Hello, Mrs. Stark.  Sorry to intrude.”

“Hello Gendry,” replied Mrs. Stark calmly before turning to her brother-in-law.  “What do you mean ‘keep him’?  In what sense were you planning to ‘keep him’?”  Steve almost dreaded the answer.

“I promise I’ll feed him and take him on walks and everything.”

“I can actually do that myself,” mumbled Gendry.  He reached a hand up and ran it through his wiry black hair.

Tony turned to Steve, and a grown man should not have effective puppy-dog eyes. “C’mon, you should have seen what he was doing with those bikes. Shitty things, but damn does he know his way around a shop. Even if he wouldn’t let me do anything interesting with the engines.”

“I’m really sorry about this.” Gendry addressed the room at large. “I tried to stop him.”

“Impossible. Would you like breakfast, Gendry?” Catelyn was breaking eggs into a bowl for omelets.

“Yes please.”

“So,” Tony broke in, because he had never prioritized food over anything. “You don’t want to stay here in Bumblefuck, right? Who would? Stark R&D has a place for you, or I can find one, or make one, because we need to give you good tools to play with.”

Gendry looked slightly panicked at the prospect.  “Tony, let the man breathe,” interjected Steve.  “Not everyone moves as fast as you.”

“They should,” Tony shot back. And that was Tony in a nutshell, Steve thought, and it shouldn’t make him so fond.

“That’s a matter for debate.  In any case, Gendry—” Steve turned back to Gendry, “How long have you been in this neck of the woods?”

Tony rolled his eyes, and opened his mouth, but Steve raised a finger and cut him off.

“I’ve been in town for about a year.  Used to live in Boston, but my mom moved up here with her new boyfriend.”

“You live at home?” asked Tony.  “ _Why_?”

“I don’t.  My mom died this past spring.  She was in New York when the aliens attacked...”  Gendry gulped.  “I stayed on because I figured I didn’t have much else to do.”

“I’m sorry.” Steve knew what it felt like, to win a war but lose everything that mattered.  He noticed Mrs. Stark putting extra cheese into gendry’s omelet.

Gendry shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Tony met Steve’s eyes, and his own thoughts were reflected back at him—it was their fault, they should have saved more, everyone, they should have stopped it sooner. But thinking that way only led to madness, which Steve had learned if Tony hadn’t, so he shook his head, slightly, and looked over at Mrs. Stark.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Not the most elegant of subject changes, but it would do.

“No, no.  Just sit there and— _Rickon, how many times have I told you not to play with that indoors?_ ”

He heard a thud and an “ow” and what sounded like a shattering something, then “Sorry, mom.”

Catelyn shook her head. “It’s your fault,” she told Tony. “You had to give him the modified pogo stick.”

“Yes, I did,” Tony agreed, and his manic smile was back on his face, the guilt pushed down, buried. “I need to bribe my way into being the favorite uncle.  Even though, honestly, no competition.  Benjen?  Edmure?  Really?  Come on now.”

“You’re going to kill him with your presents one day.”

“No, no, it’d be really hard to kill yourself on that, you’d really have to try and even then I actually tested it enough—Pepper can vouch for me, you can call her, I really do test the things I give to your children—that I don’t think he could manage it without some pretty extenuating circumstances.” Tony paused, as Steve made a mental note to make sure Tony was testing everything he used himself, because that had sounded like some very specific denial. “I mean, maybe if he had a centrifuge...”

Rickon appeared at Tony’s elbow.  “When do we get presents, Uncle Tony?”

“Rickon.  That’s not polite,” snapped Mrs. Stark.  Rickon rolled his eyes.

“Fine. When do we get presents, _please_?”

Ned came through the kitchen door.  “Rickon, one does not simply ask a person if they have gifts for you, even if they have a history of producing ludicrous presents at the drop of a hat.”

“Do you have a hat to drop?” Tony asked Rickon, all seriousness. “No? Then I guess we have to wait until Benjen gets here.”

“But Uncle Tony...”

“You heard him,” Mrs. Stark cut in, “Are the rest of the children awake?” she asked her husband.

“Arya is. I think the older two haven’t emerged yet.  I heard Robb on Skype at five in the morning, so he might be a while.  Hello, Gendry.” Ned crossed to the coffee maker, poured himself a mugful as Mrs. Stark rolled her eyes and muttered something indistinct about her children and giving up.

“Mr. Stark,” said Gendry, sheepishly.  

“No.  No Mr. Stark.  That’s my dad.  This is Ned.  And that’s Cat,” insisted Tony, designating each of them with his fork. “And if you start calling people Mr. Stark that would get really confusing, because there’ll be a lot of us, six if you count the boys, and then we’d all get confused and think you were talking to dad anyway, and if dad appears here I am leaving.”

“You sound more concerned about it being dad than him being dead,” Ned observed.

“I am. In my line of work, dead isn’t a permanent condition.” Tony tilted his head towards Steve. “How often has Cyclops died recently?”

“I’ve lost count,” Steve admitted.

“Well for us, death is rather more permanent,” Ned remarked.

“At least, I should hope so,” said Mrs. Stark. “Now anyone who wants an omelet, sit down.”

Arya stumbled into the kitchen ten minutes later.  She looked as though morning was more than she was ready for. Her daughter really was turning into a teenager, Cat thought, with a hint of regret.

She walked right past all of them towards the coffee maker, poured herself a mug and took a deep sip, looking around the kitchen.

She almost spat the coffee out.  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Hello to you, too,” replied Gendry. He took another bite of his omelet.

Catelyn wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know.  “Arya, be polite.”

“What’s he doing here?” Arya shot back.

“Your Uncle Tony has abducted him,” Steve explained. He sounded just as unsurprised as the rest of them.

“Your Uncle Tony is offering him a job,” corrected Tony.

“Your Uncle Tony doesn’t take no for an answer,” said Gendry.

Arya snorted.

“How do you two know each other?” asked Ned suspiciously.

“He’s just around, isn’t he?” Arya was not meeting her father’s gaze, and so she did not see him arch an eyebrow.

“And this would have nothing to do with the suspiciously new-looking muffler on the car?”

Arya choked on another sip of coffee. By the time she had finished coughing, she had composed her face. “Why would I know anything about that? I only just got my license, I can’t afford to get into an accident already.”

“That is true.”  Ned seemed to know exactly what he was talking about, and Catelyn was very, _very_ glad that he was the one dealing with this.  She had trouble with Arya.  Ned didn’t.  Ned said it was because Arya was like Lyanna, though Cat had always interpreted Lyanna as a slightly less manic, less brilliant version of Tony, and didn’t see that.

“Well,” Arya was clearly scrambling for words, “Hi.  Welcome.  Be wary of Rickon’s room.”

“Hey!” snapped Rickon.

“It’s disgusting in there,” Arya continued.

“Is not!”

“And he really should learn how to shower.”

“I do!”

“Arya, be nice to your brother.”

She smiled at her mother, and Cat knew that smile all too well.  It was the Sansa smile—the smile that meant there was something going on underneath that shiny, happy face.  But there was no way to catch her, no way to call her on it.  So Catelyn let it drop.

They heard another bang.

“What now?” she mumbled.  

Bran rolled his way into the kitchen.  “I knocked over a chair in the dining room,” he said sheepishly.

“I got it,” said Steve, who was on his feet and out of the kitchen before Catelyn could move.  She liked him.  He seemed like a good influence on Tony.

“Now your crazy family has scared Steve,” Tony shot at Ned. Cat shot a worried glance after Steve before noting the smile that was playing around Tony’s lips.

“They’re your crazy family too.”

“Hey, I took my crazy and made a suit. You took your crazy and made more.”

“I’d call that an effective investment.  Made it grow and profited from it,” Ned teased.  “The company stock never benefited from your suit.”

“Hey! I save the world!”

“Ned,” Cat said, in the exact same tone as she had to Arya, “Be nice to your brother.”

Ned made his puppy-dog face at her, and she rolled her eyes.  Then he muttered under his breath, “I had such a good one lined up—about how I was just making up for the fact that none of my brothers had kids.”

“I didn’t realize that men could have kids,” smiled Cat sweetly, at the same time that Tony shuddered, “God, why would I ever have kids? Can you imagine what I’d do to them? I’m happy with training up one of your brats to take over the company some day, but my own?”

Ned looked between his wife and his brother, raised his hands and said, “I’m going to go load the woodbox.  Arya, you’re helping me.  Rickon, you too.”  

“But dad...” Rickon whined.

“See,” Tony stage-whispered to Catelyn, “Brats.”

“Rickon, go help your father.”

“Fine.” Rickon put his plate in the sink and trudged after his father and sister, towards the back of the house.

“Do they need help?” Steve asked. Cat nearly jumped out of her skin. He was far too large to move so quietly.

“Just let him help already,” Tony inserted. “It’ll make him feel all shiny and Cap-like all day.”

“Wait,” said Gendry slowly, looking between Tony and Steve, “You’re Captain America?”

Steve ran his fingers through his hair.  “At your service?”

Gendry’s jaw dropped. “But—you—you—would you sign my action figures?”

“How come everyone always has things for you to sign?” Tony whined. He sounded remarkably like Rickon. Especially as he ignored the fact that he was just as popular as Steve whenever they did PR and twice as skilled at it, charming everyone within a twenty foot radius as easily as breathing.

“Because people like me better,” Steve told him, “And because I don’t kidnap innocent mechanics. I’d be happy to,” he told Gendry.

“They were my mom’s,” explained Gendry.  “She got them from her dad.”

“Now I feel old again,” sighed Steve.

“You are old, man out of time.” Tony slung a companionable arm around Steve’s shoulders.  The heat of it burned through his t-shirt.  “Remember how you were buddy-buddy with my dad?”

“You just like not being the oldest one on the team,” Steve retorted.

“I resent that!” Tony took his arm off of Steve to cross his arms over his chest. “Thor is millennia old, he is by far the oldest. Just because he doesn’t age doesn’t mean the years don’t count.”

*

“He ditch you too?” Steve looked from his sketchbook to the porch chair next to him, which Arya had just dropped into.

“Hm?”

“It’s like he doesn’t even know anyone else is there, if there’s something with metal in it nearby.” Arya crossed her arms over her chest and blew out a breath that made her bangs flutter. Steve resisted doing the same, mainly because an evening to himself, sketching the mountains, was something rare in his line of work. And because Tony spending an evening helping a boy fix a car was nothing compared to days in his workshop. “He can just be so stupid sometimes.”

Steve would have to talk to Tony about this. Helping the orphaned mechanic was all well and good—and Steve had already talked to both Pepper and Fury, because clearly Tony would not have remembered to call—but family came first. It took someone without any to know that.

“It’s not his fault,” he said slowly. He shaded in a tree onto the mountainside. How to explain Tony, when he didn’t even understand him himself? “He’s just—he gets distracted, sometimes. He comes back.” He always came back, always eventually made his way upstairs from his workshop. It just took patience. And the occasional tranquilizing arrow.

“Yeah, sure, distraction. As if I’m not distraction enough.  It’s not like I ever get to see him or anything.  Now he goes off and... _cars_.” Arya uncrossed her arms, began to drum her fingers against the wicker arm of her chair. She was like Tony in that, Steve had noticed; she wasn’t good at keeping still.

“Cars are pretty cool,” Steve pointed out mildly. “You could work on them with him.” And if part of his motivation for using that strategy himself was to see Tony shirtless and covered in sweat and oil, no one had to know.

Arya snorted.  “As if he’d let me anywhere near his precious cars.”

“I’m sure if you asked nicely—”

Arya rolled her eyes.  “He’d tell me to go away and put that down and that I’ll probably end up hurting someone.  Him most likely.”

“Really?” Tony didn’t usually have any sort of concern for safety, his own least of all. Sometimes, Steve worried that he would just go down into his workshop and never come back up, because he’d have managed to burn himself with a blowtorch. But maybe he had more concern for his niece. That was sweet, in a way—a very Tony sort of sweetness, hidden beneath words and arrogance and pretended selfishness.

“I’ve tried.” She sighed, shoved out of the chair to pace the room. “I mean, my parents like him. You like him, right? And you’re, like, Captain America.”

Like. Yes, he liked Tony. Sort of like he liked those muffins Bruce made sometimes, with chocolate chips and banana and some secret ingredient Bruce refused to share even with Tony, which Steve could eat whole batches of by himself. “I do,” he agreed.   He felt as though there was something pressing down on his chest—and he very rarely felt as though there was anything heavy enough to press down on his chest.

It felt strangely terrifying.  He wasn’t sure why, or, indeed, how.  It seemed like just yesterday he had been small—maybe even smaller than Arya—and anything could knock him down, flatten him to the ground.  But here, and now, in this strange new world, with its strange perceptions of what men should and should not be, who they could and could not love…

He had thought that nothing could make him feel more at sea than not knowing anything about this Modern America.  Then he had met Tony Stark.

 “And he likes me, right?” There was that hint of neediness in her voice, breaking through the frustration, like Tony late at night, when he looked at the stars from the roof of the tower and muttered things about his father, about Pepper, about family.

“He does.” Steve said it with all the conviction he could muster, because if there was one thing he had learned about Tony Stark, it was that he loved totally and unconditionally, whether it was the impersonal idea of ‘humanity’ he embraced or someone, like his family. “He might not always know how to show it, but he does. Men—” And how was he supposed to explain men? “He’s not good with emotions, I think.”

“That’s for sure.  If you’ve only known him for half a day and you can see that, that’s the fucking truth.”

Wait.

What?

“Yeah...” Half a day? What was she talking about? He had known Tony for half a year—well, really known him for less than that, once they had gotten over their initial misunderstandings and he had seen beneath the brittle, reflective shell. Half a day—

Oh.

Huh.

He replayed the conversation. It all applied, he guessed. Why had he even assumed it was about Tony? Not everything revolved around Tony.

Though for him, it seemed that most things did, nowadays.

“You could try helping now,” he suggested, hesitantly. Now that he knew what he was actually supposed to be doing...God, when he was her age he hadn’t known how to talk to girls either. Or boys, not that he had ever considered that when he was her age, even dared to let that out of the deepest recesses of his mind. “Tony will probably let you.”

“I’m not allowed in the garage when Tony is there.” Arya gazed mournfully down the hill, to where bangs and yells were coming from the small wooden shed. “No one is. House rule.”

“You could...” Steve was really out of his depth here. How had girls wooed Bucky? They had usually just giggled and been there, and then Bucky did the wooing. “You could try finding something to talk about? Common ground? If you haven’t talked much, that might help?” That was how he and Tony had bonded, after all, late nights with too little sleep and too many dreams and a mutual love of finding new Disney movies for Steve to watch.

“But what is there? All I know is he’s a stupid oaf who likes cars and has really nice eyes.” Arya groaned, ran a hand through her hair. “I hate dealing with this shit. I didn’t want to. Boys. Come on. It’s such a...Sansa thing to talk about. I wonder if he likes soccer?” She got up and walked back into the house. “Thanks, Steve!” she threw over her shoulder as she left.

Steve looked back down at his sketchbook. He hadn’t done half-bad, he thought with a touch of pride. Maybe he was learning.

Down the hill, Tony stepped out of the garage. He was in his usual workshop attire of jeans and an old t-shirt, so his arm muscles rippled as he lifted his arms and stretched, so that the shirt rode up, revealing a line of stomach and a hint of hip bones.

Steve flushed, ducked his head. Shit.

*

“I can at least hold things on my lap, mom.  I just want to get out of the damn house.”

“Watch your language young man.  And all right.”  Catelyn ran her hands through Bran’s hair.

“Stop, mom.”

“Sansa, will you grab my purse from the living room?” she called over her shoulder as she pushed Bran’s chair out the front door and began the complicated process that was putting him in the second seat of the car.

She hated that the most—putting Bran in the car.  Lifting Bran in and out of his chair, when there had been a time when she couldn’t imagine anyone more active.  Bran who loved to run, climb, skip, jump, _move_ trapped in a chair.

He bore it well, with dignity even, for the most part, except when everyone around him was moving faster than him.

“You all set?” she asked, buckling him in.  He rolled his eyes again.  He rolled his eyes a lot these days, whenever she tried to check on him like that.  As if he didn’t feel like saying _I wouldn’t know because I can’t feel my legs_ for the trillionth time.

Sansa slipped quietly into the passenger seat and placed her purse on the armrest.

“You have the shopping list?” Cat asked.

“Yep.  It’s in your purse.”

“Excellent.  Off we go, then.”

The grocery store was nearly empty when they got there.  She had learned that arriving half an hour before the store closed usually meant that she didn’t have to wait unbearably long at the checkout.  Of course, this tactic didn’t work so well when it came to fruits and vegetables, but in winter, it wasn’t as if the quality of these items was particularly good anyway.  She nodded to Jocelyn Pike when she pulled a shopping cart out of the line, and then dug out her shopping list.

“Bran—why don’t you fetch me cereal, flour, breadcrumbs, and as much pasta as you can hold in your hands.  Sansa, if you could get seltzer, ginger ale, and juices, that should be good.”

And they were off.  Bran’s arms pumped with vigor down as he hurried his chair down the aisle.  She had noticed the other night when helping him into bed that the muscles in his arms were larger than she had ever dreamed possible from her little man.  She could see from the way his fingers grasped at the wheels that he relished the wide, open lanes of the grocery store—so much easier to speed down than the cramped hallways of their home. She wondered if there was a way to modify some hallways, make it easier for him to get around.  They had already moved the little tables and some pictures, but that didn’t seem to be enough.

She set herself to loading the cart with vegetables and fruit—squash, onions, peppers, tomatoes (even though she knew that Ned would complain about their being out of season.  He was a tomato snob, for some unfathomable reason), apples, plums, pears, and oranges.  She stared at the mountain of food and knew that they would probably be back in two days for more.

She sighed.

It wouldn’t be _so_ bad if Robb weren’t home, and she supposed she should just be thankful that Jon was abroad and didn’t have another twenty-year-old-boy appetite to add to the mix.

“I got some cider too, since they still had bottles from the fair,” said Sansa, depositing six bottles of various drinks into the cart.  “What now?”

Catelyn consulted her list.  “See if you can get two of those giant trays of eggs.  Also, if you could grab some cold cuts, that would be good.”

“Ham?  Turkey?”

“And roast beef, I think.  And don’t forget cheeses.”

And Sansa was gone again, but Bran was back.  She took the cereal from his lap and dispatched him for crackers, cookies, and granola bars.

She pushed the cart on, loading several enormous loaves of bread into the cart and then going and collecting steak and pork for dinners.

“Should I get some beer?” Sansa was back.

“Well, your Uncle Tony isn’t drinking these days, so we might actually be fine—at least until Ben gets here.”

“That’s crazy, isn’t it? I feel like I’ve never seen him without a drink before.” Sansa pulled out her phone, glanced at the display, then put it back. “What do you think stopped it?  Do you actually believe what he said the other night?”

Cat had her suspicions, none of which she was going to share with her daughter. “He said it was because he wanted to be a more effective hero.”

“Yeah, but come on, he’s been Iron Man for years and still been a drunk.” Sansa’s grin was quick and bright, something Cat felt she hadn’t seen in a while. “I think it’s because of Steve.”

“They do seem to be good friends,” Cat agreed, weighing her words. Tony may have been the least mature adult the children had been exposed to for years—in some ways, that is—but he was still an adult, an authority figure, and she didn’t know how much to speculate.

“Friends. Right. I’m sure they’re that, too.”

“That’s all we know.” Cat surveyed her list, effectively cutting off that line of conversation, no matter how much she might want to continue. “So, what am I forgetting?”

“Mom, can we get Cheez-Its?”  She hadn’t heard Bran.  It was strange not hearing Bran coming up behind her.  Not that he had been loud before.  On the contrary, he had always been amazingly light on his feet.  But not to hear him at all...

“No.”  

Sansa began unloading the other snacks from his lap.

“Come on!  It’s the holidays!”

“No, Bran.  Put them back.”

Bran rolled his eyes (the normal eye-roll, not the bitter one) and headed back towards the snack aisle.

“Dairy?” Sansa asked.

“Dairy.”  And they moved towards the last aisle of the store.

Sansa froze, her eyes trained on the boy in the red sweatshirt who was crouching down to get the right kind of yogurt.  She was almost vibrating, like a cornered animal.

When he stood, he glanced around.  He caught  Sansa’s eyes for a second, then hurried away down the row.  Sansa’s lips were pursed so tightly that they seemed colorless, devoid of blood.

“Sansa?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you—”

“Harry’s an ass.  I’m fine.  Milk, yogurt, cheese? What else?”

Sometimes, Catelyn thought that out of all her children, she understood Sansa the best. “Cottage cheese probably, and butter.”

Sansa moved with a determined calm, with the purpose of one who seeks to ignore the cheating bastard who had just appeared so unexpectedly in front of her.  Her face was smooth, her eyes slack.  Her hands never even moved to check her hip pocket, where her phone and constant companion stayed, like she didn’t want to be reminded of anything that had once been used in reference to him.

Cat sometimes wondered when Sansa had become so jaded, so unlike the sweet little girl who had believed in Disney princes and in love at first sight.  She wondered if Sansa would ever smile her old smile—the uncalculated one, the one that was not coated in sugar to hide a precise, and sometimes devastating, point.  The smile that had been simple joy, the smile that Catelyn had not seen on her elder daughter’s face since her early high school days, the smile that had been so reminiscent of Bran’s when he was sitting in the apple tree, on a higher branche than he had managed last time.

“There.” Sansa put the milk into the cart. “Are we ready to go now?”

Bran was back, watching his sister with big, cool eyes, that uncanny blue gaze that Cat always found too old for his face. Sansa met the gaze evenly, detachedly.

 _There they are_ , thought Cat suddenly, and more than a little sadly.  _All grown up._

*

“Nightcaps are just not as exciting when there’s no alcohol in the drinks,” Tony remarked, giving his mug of coffee a baleful glare. Steve had considered trying to make him have something without any kind of stimulants in it, but decided that he had to pick some battles.  Tony without caffeine could be dangerous.

“Oh, it all depends,” said Robb.

“On what?” demanded Tony.

“The conversation topic.”

“Because it’s so exciting at the moment.”

“Well, we’ve only just gotten started.”  Robb took a sip of his beer, and Steve noticed a familiar mischievous gleam in his eyes.

“Oh, it’s going to be that way, is it?” grinned Tony.

“You are only having one, Robb,” intoned Mrs. Stark, with one of the warning looks that mothers seemed to know instinctively.

“What?  Come on!”

“I will not have you drinking to excess in my house.  If that’s what you want to do, you can wait until you go back to Cambridge.  One beer.”

“Not even enough to get a good buzz,” muttered Robb under his breath.  Tony’s eyebrows rose, and his lips pressed together.

“Maybe if you’re drinking shit college beer. Go to the MIT parties, they make the good shit.” Mrs. Stark’s eyes narrowed. But there was the reckless, sharp edge to Tony’s eyes that Steve had come to trust, if worry over. Tony was about to do something brave and stupid. “Of course, that way you can end up like that kid who ended up dead on Mass Ave my junior year.” Tony shook his head, dark eyes fixed on Robb, belying his nostalgic tone. “Good times, good times.”

“What kid?”

“Oh, I don’t quite remember. I was what, seventeen? I don’t remember much of that year. Spent most of it drunk. Or in the workshop. Or drunk and in the workshop, and let me tell you, drunk engineering is a terrifying thing, you end up with shit like Dummy and that is just not okay.” Steve might almost have believed him, if Tony hadn’t called the Tower an hour before to make sure someone was oiling his bots. “Anyway, I think he was a Harvard kid, couldn’t handle the shit we nerds made, started stumbling back down to the T. Ended up dead. Or maybe just in a coma? I really don’t remember.” Tony shrugged. “As I said, drunk most of the time.” Robb’s eyes widened.

“You know,” Ned leaned back in his armchair, swirling his brandy around in his glass, “I don’t think that it’s the lack of alcohol that had Tony frustrated.  I think it was the lack of talking about himself.”

“That,” Tony waved his mug through the air in a way that made Steve nervous that all the coffee would slosh out onto the nice living room rug, “is simply false.  I can have a great deal of fun talking about other people.  Robb here, for example.”

Robb’s eyes widened with what Steve suspected was fear. It was probably justified. “Me?” It came out on a squeak.

“Well, you and Theon, to be exact.”

“We established last night that I want to hear none of this.”  Ned’s eyebrows were raised, concerned, but his lips were twitching in what could possibly be the beginnings of a smile. Steve supposed that anyone who grew up with Tony had to have a good sense of humor.

“You didn’t want to hear specifics. That doesn’t mean you can’t tease him in generalities.” Tony leaned back too, in what was probably an unconscious echo of his brother. “Just mention Theon, snow, and anything that starts with the letter C.”  

Robb almost spat out his beer.  “Robb,” said Mrs. Stark sternly, “be careful.  I do not want to have to clean this rug again.  I only just got some of the stains out from when Rickon had the flu.”

Robb sputtered what sounded like “I’m sorry, I mean, I just—”

“So,” Ned said, “C, huh? Perhaps a cantankerous cat? Or a canopied cart? Or a—”

“Castrated cabbie,” Tony suggested.

“Calm courtier,” Ned put in.

Robb’s face was purple.  

“Ned,” sighed Mrs. Stark, “Leave him be.  We don’t know what we’re even torturing him over.  It could be serious.”  She emphasized the ‘could’ and the first syllable of ‘serious’ a hopeful look on her face.

Tony and Ned’s eyes met, then looked over at Mrs. Stark with the same incredulous expression.

“No,” Tony said.

“Sorry, Cat,” Ned added. “But I’m with Tony on this one.”

“But get it? c-rious!” Mrs. Stark gaped when neither of the Stark men laughed. “It’s funny.”

“No it’s not.”

“Steve?” Mrs. Stark turned to him for support. Tony followed suit quickly, and his eyes were dancing and he was smiling his real smile, not the fake publicity smile he used too often. Steve held up his hands.

“I wouldn’t know anything about it Ma’am—Cat!” he corrected when she raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve corrupted him, haven’t you?” She shook her head at Tony.

“Me? Corrupt someone? Why, whatever are you talking about?” he fluttered his eyelashes ridiculously. Then he pouted. “Fury made me promise not to corrupt Steve. He’s a spoilsport.”

“When was this?” Steve interjected. He didn’t remember that discussion.

“Oh, ages ago. When you were defrosting. After I saw a picture.”

“A picture?”

Tony’s eyes went serious. “Did you really think that they were going to use millions of my father’s dollars and effort and not let me see the results?” His lips quirked, and there was something self-deprecating and something sincere. “Not to say you were ever my family’s.”

“And besides, I wouldn’t blame Tony for Robb’s corruption half so much as Theon, and Theon’s horrible hair.”

“I think it was a comment on my corruption of Steve—or regrettable lack thereof—Ned.”

“I know.  I just think that there was an implication that you are also responsible for corrupting Robb into doing whatever he does with snow and the letter C, and I felt like pointing out that Theon Greyjoy is at least fifty percent responsible.” Ned gazed ruefully, if cheerfully, into his glass. “If not more like seventy-five percent.  And Robb, you should get a haircut.”

“It’s fine, dad,” sighed Robb.

“No.  Long hair is really rather silly.  And it doesn’t look good on you. Theon can pull it off.  Even if it also looks somewhat silly on him.”

“That boy can pull most things off,” Tony pointed out.

“Tony!”

“What?” Tony grinned. “Just saying. He’s an attractive kid. And not illegal anymore, right? He’s what, twentyish? Totally not something I could get arrested for.”

“Tony,” Steve repeated, warning this time. The Avengers did not need this sort of press. And Steve did not need those sorts of images. Or desires to punch this Theon kid, whoever he was, in the head.

“Uncle Tony!” Robb echoed. He looked more than a little bit green. “That’s—he’s—we—ew!”

“Oh, that’s a point,” Tony agreed. Steve wondered how quickly he could gag Tony and get him away. With the rest of the Avengers, they had figured out a plan that would get him out in three seconds or less. With just him, he figured it might be more like ten. Which wasn’t enough to stop him saying whatever he was going to say. And nope, that couldn’t stop the wink that made Robb go so pale Steve changed into wondering if he was going to have a heart attack. “Maybe I should avoid him. Wouldn’t want him to accidentally fall pray to my charms.”

“Yeah. Accidentally.” Steve muttered.

“You know,” interjected Ned, “I don’t really remember you being this crazy when we were younger.  But I suppose Brandon and Lyanna got it more than I did...”

“The schools got most of it,” Tony countered. “But yeah, Brandon listened to my crazy more.  He always was good at that.”

“I suppose—when he made the effort to.”  Catelyn recognized that tone of voice, and she was sure, from the way that Tony’s eyebrows flickered upwards, that he did too.

Ned did not drink very often.  But when he did, he tended to reminisce.  Sometimes, he reminisced about nice things—when they had first met, when he and Robert had driven across the country, teaching Robb to ride a bicycle.  Sometimes, he would reminisce about things that were more complicated—like Brandon, like Lyanna, like Howard Stark.

And when Tony was there, it never went well.

But to give him credit—and probably because this time, he was sober—Tony started off with his voice even, even if his knuckles were white around the grey china of the mug. “He usually did.”

Ned didn’t say anything, but there was a slight movement in his eyes that could be interpreted as an eye-roll.  “It was the only time he listened.”  Cat wished she could knock the brandy glass out of her husband’s hand as he raised it to his lips and took another sip.

“At least he managed to scrape time out of his busy schedule to do it,” Tony shot back. Across the room, Steve twitched, like he meant to move towards Tony but thought better of it. Cat wished he had. Cat wished he would just take Tony away, take away the ice that mainly came into Ned when his brother was around.

“You never wanted to talk to me,” Ned replied.  His voice sounded so calm, so even, but Catelyn heard the accusation and cringed.

She knew where this was going.

This, more than anything that Tony ever did around her children, any bimbos he brought along, was why she was tense every Thanksgiving.  

She glanced at Robb.  He looked suddenly so small in his chair, timid.  She wished she could send him to his room, but you can’t send a twenty year old to his room because you want him not to witness a fight between his even-tempered father and his favorite uncle.  It used to be that this would happen after the kids were all in bed, or ensconced away in their rooms at the very least.

But not now, not when Robb wanted to be a grown up.

She locked eyes with him across the room, and watched his eyebrows knit together.  She grimaced.  And the understanding that flooded into his eyes almost made her cry.  She reached for her own glass of wine.

“Why would I have wanted to?” Tony shifted, leaned forward so his elbows were braced on his knees. “Perfect Ned, why wasn’t I more like Ned, why couldn’t I just be normal like Ned? Why would I want to talk to Ned?” The sneer dripped out of his voice, as cool and icily vicious as Cersei Lannister had been the last time she and Robert had come to visit. “Especially when Brandon was there to actually listen to what I had to say.”

“You were the one who was going to succeed, though, weren’t you?  Not me, not Brandon, not Benjen.  You. With your fancy schools and MIT at fifteen and dad at your science fairs.”

“Dad never went to my fucking science fairs!” Tony was on his feet, Steve up in almost the same instant, as if he had expected this, or had read it in Tony’s face. He put his hand on Tony’s shoulder, but nothing could stop Tony when he got like this.  He and Ned had that in common.

“But he kept all the ribbons! Where are my lacrosse trophies?  Lyanna’s compositions?”

“Who the hell cares? He kept all my fucking ribbons, great, held them up and asked why the hell I hadn’t done better?”

“At least he asked.” Ned’s voice was suddenly quiet, and a shiver shot up Catelyn’s spine.  “He never asked me, never asked Brandon, never asked Benjen, never asked Lyanna—”

Tony surged forward, out of Steve’s grasp, and jerked the glass out of Ned’s hand. The glass shattered on the stone hearth, brandy spilling out of it like blood. “Stop,” he snapped out, and his hand still vibrated like he was a band stretched too tight, “Just stop it. You’re sounding like him. You’re fucking acting like him.”

Ned sat very still.  “No.  I was never like him.  Brandon was.”

“Fuck that!”

The rage in Tony’s voice hurt, hurt like a slap to the face, like a slap to Ned’s face. Hurt all the more because she knew the affection beneath the words and the pain, the love that had grown, somehow, between two men who had lost almost everything else. Hurt because they had never known how to make something new out of the wreckage, and had both needed to build elsewhere, alone.

“You will never hear a word against him, but you never really knew him, Tony.  Brandon was—”

“Oh, I’m sorry he died before I got to know him,” Tony drawled. It was funny, how people thought that Tony got fiery when angry, Cat mused, in the part of her that wasn’t trying to figure out how to get Robb out of the room. It would have been better if he ran hot. But Ned and Tony had only ever been mad at each other through the ice.

To his credit, Ned waited for Tony to finish his comment before continuing, “Brandon was conceited, selfish, dishonest, unfaithful and far more of a drunk than even you have ever managed.”

“Well then it sounds like we’d have a lot in common,” Tony spat.

“Tony, you’re not...” Steve’s hand tightened on Tony’s shoulder. Robb was staring at his uncle as if he had never seen him before. Maybe this would break the hero worship. Maybe Cat could find it in herself to be glad for that.

Tony rolled over Steve’s protest. He was still tense to the point that he was shaking, but his dark eyes—so unlike Ned’s—were sharp and glinted like the metal he loved. “Actually, he sounds like a blast to be around, and really, who’d know better than me? Sounds pretty damn fun. Cat certainly thought so—”

“All right.”  That was enough.  Ned’s face was a mask of fury, more twisted with rage than she had seen it since their wedding.  At least Tony had been drunk then, drunk and too young to know better.  God, she wished he were drunk now.  Robb’s eyes had shot to her the moment her name was mentioned and he looked so young, so innocent, so ignorant of everything that might possibly be going through Tony’s or Ned’s minds.  “I think we all have said enough.  Steve, if you could help Tony upstairs—”

“I don’t need help, Cat,” interrupted Tony.  She ignored him.

“Robb, can you check on Bran to make sure he doesn’t need anything—if he’s still awake, that is?  Ned, I think you should have some water now.”

She wondered when they had started listening to her.  At the wedding, she had had to drag Ned to the dance floor, force his arms around her and lock her eyes to his for minutes before he began to think that she might know what she was doing.  The last time that Tony had been this angry, just after Rickon had been conceived, he had continued on for at least a minute and a half before Ned had punched him.  

But now, Steve had grabbed Tony’s arm and was frogmarching him out of the room, Robb had escaped as quickly as he possibly could, and Ned was moving towards the kitchen and she heard the sink running.  

She didn’t realize she was shaking until she was standing, alone in the middle of the living room with the scent of spilled brandy filling the air.  And the sad thing was, she knew exactly how much worse that could have been.


	4. 3. Tuesday

Steve slept badly that night. Not the usual sleeping badly caused by nightmares and flashbacks and Bucky’s hand slipping from his, or portals to another world closing before Tony falls through, but the sort of sleeping badly he used to have after Bucky fought with his mother.

So when he woke and the sun had not even risen, he was less than surprised.

He rolled over, and closed his eyes, wishing that sleep would come and knowing that it would not. It could not, not when he remembered so vividly the anger in Tony’s face and the glint of steely eyes in the firelight, not when he closed his eyes and saw Tony, a Tony he had only used to see in old videos and articles, before Pepper and Iron Man and the Avengers, a Tony he wanted to slap and hug and shake all at once.

Tony had refused to talk last night, had shaken Steve off and slammed his door when Steve had tried to open his mouth, to say anything that would stop Tony looking like he was about to snap. But maybe this morning—Tony usually did better with time to think things over, to blame himself completely before he moved past the guilt and into a reaction that wasn’t instinctive and vicious. Steve opened his eyes, got out of bed, and threw on a pair of sweatpants and an Avengers merchandising T-shirt that Tony had bought them each a set of as soon as they came out. Steve’s Iron Man shirt was too worn to wear anywhere but to bed, but the Hawkeye shirt was comfortable enough.

Tony wasn’t in his room. That too was unsurprising. So Steve padded downstairs, through the quiet of the house before anyone was awake, even the kids who were going to school, and out onto the dew-soaked grass. Sure enough, the lights in the garage were on, and Black Sabbath was an interesting counterpoint to the morning birdsong.

A pair of legs were sticking out from under Ned’s Saab—Tony’s. If it wasn’t obvious from where they were, Steve also knew the constellation of tears and stains and muscles that made up Tony’s jeans. He walked over, leaned back against the door next to the legs, and crossed his arms. Tony would come out when he was ready.

Five minutes later, the dolly wheels squeaked, and Tony slid out from under the car. His cheeks were smeared with oil and dirt, and there were bags under his eyes, but he grinned, and something unclenched in Steve’s gut.

“Hey, Cap. Up early?” He grabbed a rag out of his pocket and wiped it across his face. It did nothing to clean it.  Steve folded his fingers around his forearms so he wouldn’t reach out and wipe away the smear across his cheekbone.

“So are you.” Tony surged to his feet and kicked something on the dolly. It folded up into a compact cube with all the sleekness and efficiency Steve had come to expect from Tony’s toys.

“Yeah, well, you know me, early to bed early to rise, all that shit.” He tossed Steve a set of keys that, judging by the handmade keychains reading "DAD", were probably Ned’s. “Turn it on.”

Steve obeyed. Tony’s head was cocked to the side as it rumbled to a start. “Shit. No. Not quite there yet. Turn it off again.”

“What are you doing?”

“Fixing Ned’s car.”

“Did it need fixing?”

“Have you seen this thing? It’s ages old.  The clutch was doing weird things.  Ned really doesn’t take care of it the way he should.  Of course it needed fixing. And even if it didn’t, it did. This thing just eats up gas. It’s ridiculous. It is an affront to all cars. So I fixed it.”

“Will he be ok with that?”  The memory of Ned’s derision, his coldness from the night before, made Steve wonder—probably unfairly, now that he thought of it—if Ned would even acknowledge his brother this morning.

“Yeah, sure, he said it was clicking, it’s whatever. He probably won’t even notice.” Tony glared at the car, as if it was a personal affront to his intelligence. Then he kicked the dolly again, and it unfolded. “Grab me that wrench?”

Steve handed it to him, and Tony rolled back under the car. “Why are you doing it if he won’t notice?” He knew, of course. He wondered if Tony did.

Tony’s voice echoed weirdly from beneath the car. “I said, it offends me. On a deep and personal level, similar to when Clint drinks all my Italian roast. Fucker doesn’t even appreciate good coffee.”

“Which is why you buy more now?” Steve nudged Tony’s knee with his foot.  It had been noticing that side of Tony, that quiet, humble kindness, that had pushed Steve from grudging friendship into whatever he felt now.

“Are you accusing me of altruism? Because I take offense at that too. See if I pick up any of that shitty cereal you like next time I make the grocery list.” Something banged beneath the car. “Shit.”

“It’s whole wheat Tony, which is why it tastes different.” More banging. Steve wondered if he should check if Tony wasn’t drowning in oil or something, but decided that Tony wouldn’t thank him for that. He had learned, at some point, what Tony considered proper workshop etiquette, which basically boiled down to ‘don’t touch Tony’s projects or he will cut you.

“What’s the point of cereal if it’s not basically sugar? That’s like Queen without Freddie Mercury. Like Windows without Bill Gates. Which should totally happen. Bill Gates is the devil.” Tony paused, more of his waiting to say something else pause than his stopping to listen someone else pause, which happened much more rarely. Steve waited.

Something clicked beneath the car, then there was a bit more banging. Steve watched Tony’s legs squirm, as if even though they weren’t doing anything they had to be in motion.

Then he emerged again. The light from the arc reactor burned through the white of his t-shirt, that comforting visual evidence that Tony was alive, was here. But his face was unexpectedly solemn despite the grease that turned it brown. “About last night—it’s fine.”

“Fine?”

“Yeah, don’t do the whole worried thing. Me and Ned are fine. Brothers, you know? Family. It’s good.” Tony shook his head. “I’m fine. You don’t have to check up on me.”

Steve considered denying it, thought better of it. He was checking up on Tony. Sometimes it felt like he was always checking up on Tony. “Maybe I want to.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but his grin flashed, quick and bright against the grime. “Aw, Cap, you say the nicest things. I might start to blush.”

“You haven’t blushed in decades.”

“Yeah, probably true.” Tony disappeared under the car again, slid sideways, then came back out. “Try it again?”

He stood up as Steve got into the car. This time, he nodded as the car started. “Good. Now that noise will stop annoying me.”

“And Ned?”

“Yeah, Ned too, I guess.” He patted the hood of the car affectionately, like it was a puppy, or an old tired beagle. They probably never had pets in the Stark household. Steve got out too and shut the door behind him. It brought him close enough to Tony that he could see beneath the grime, see the shadows and quivering energy, almost feel his warmth.

“Did you sleep?”

Tony chuckled. “Sleep is for the weak, mister pinnacle of human perfection who thus only needs to sleep a few hours a night.”

“Which is a no?”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” Which was not a very comforting thought, and had never been.

Steve’s hand closed over Tony’s forearm. “You’re getting some sleep.”

“I’ve totally got like, at least twenty-four more hours until I crash. I’m not even hallucinating yet, and trust me, I know sleep-deprivation hallucinations.” Yet he didn’t complain as Steve began to walk him out into the yard. The sky had lightened slightly while they worked. “They’re the best sort of hallucinations. I mean, alcohol ones are just weird, and don’t even get me started on acid.”

“Not listening,” Steve hummed, opening the door to the porch and pushing Tony inside.

“Oh, come on, it’s not like I do it anymore. Hey, think there’ll be coffee made yet? I bet Sansa’s a coffee drinker. She seems like one. I need to get them a better coffee maker, because those who cannot have lattes on demand are deprived, I tell you, deprived!  Hey Sansa.”

Sansa looked up from her cereal. “Hi Uncle Tony. You’re up early.”

“Early, late, what’s the difference?” Tony wandered past them, towards the coffee maker. “Do you have coffee?”

“Not yet. And you’re disgusting. Is that oil?”

“Girls telling me I’m disgusting in the morning.” Tony grinned, winked at her. “Just like old times.”

“Go take a shower, Tony,” Steve ordered, biting down on a laugh. “I’ll make coffee.”

“Fine. I am trusting you with this sacred duty, though. Be aware of the perils therein...” Tony wandered out, still talking. Steve watched him go, his arms waving as he talked to nothing. Probably too used to JARVIS, to being able to talk to his walls and have them answer back, to being able to think and have it translated into screens and plans even as he moved.

“Sometimes I wonder if he created JARVIS just so he would seem a little less batshit to his friends,” sighed Sansa.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” grinned Steve. He shook his head as Tony disappeared up the stairs, then moved to the coffee maker. Tony hadn’t been kidding about perils.  Some of the most serious fights they had in the tower were about coffee, or lack thereof.

“You are up early.  Something keep you up?”  She lifted one eyebrow ever so slightly, her mouth twisting into a teasing smile.

Steve let out a surprised cough. Sansa’s grin got even broader.

“You know,” she raised a spoon full of raisin bran, “I didn’t realize that thirty year old men could look like lost puppies.”

“Hey, I’m a lot older than thirty.” Steve paused. “Sort of.” He was never quite sure how old to say he was. Sometimes he felt like the only people who understood him were grandparents these days. Sometimes it felt like he was a newborn, watching without comprehension the flashiness of the modern world, of Tony’s world, a world he could only reach helplessly for and watch as it flashed by.  As he flashed by.

“That makes it better?”

He froze.

“Uh huh.  That’s right.  I suppose it’s just something that happens to people when they want someone else.”  Her expression grew a little more serious, and her light blue eyes grew a little more distant.  

“I don’t—I mean, it’s not like that.” Steve swallowed. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. “And I don’t look like a puppy.”

The seriousness vanished from Sansa’s face and she rolled her eyes.  “Believe me when I say I know the lost-puppy-face better than anyone.  How did it happen?”

“I’m sorry?”

“How did you figure out that you wanted to deal with all my uncle’s crazy?”

“Well, you know, we defeated an insane alien god, and then it all kind of snowballed from there.” And then somehow they were in the Tower, and then Steve was spending most of his free time sitting in Tony’s workshop, idly sketching as Tony worked. And then he was mainly sketching Tony, who was really an interesting figure, all motion and bright lights and flashes of color. And then he was here, with Tony’s family, and seeing where he came from, and how far he had gotten on his own, and his heart was breaking for the little boy he had been, not alone but different and apart all the same.

Sansa took an approving bite of cereal. “You’re holding out on me.  But that’s fine.  I’ll get the story out.  I always do.”

Steve was suddenly very aware that he had no reading on Sansa Stark.  She sat there, looking alert, for all it was 6:30 in the morning, impeccably dressed and perfectly made-up and coiffed.  He was visited, once again, by her resemblance to Natasha. Probably—hopefully—minus the arsenal. It did the opposite of soothing his nerves.

As if she had read his mind, she continued, “You’ve never had to deal with someone who has to navigate a corrupt high school social experience, have you?  Poor Steve.  It’s not Captain America’s usual challenge, and, honestly, I don’t know if you could survive it.”

“Oh, I have long since figured out that women are a greater challenge than anything I will ever face.”

Sansa raised an eyebrow.  “This explains a great deal.”  And he flushed again. He wasn’t even entirely sure why; it hadn’t been nearly as suggestive as some of the things Tony dropped into casual conversation.

Sansa began to laugh.  “You’re really adorable, you know.  You’d think that Captain America of all people would be able to keep it together, but I think I like it better this way.”

“What way?”

Sansa’s eyes softened, but she only shrugged. “I have bad luck with boys.  It’s nice to see that _some_ men aren’t all that bad. Gives a girl hope.”

Steve watched her, but she did not elaborate.  And, unlike her, he had no idea how to press further. He wasn’t even sure he should. Did teenaged girls want to talk about that sort of thing? Was he even the right person to ask?

“I’m sure—I mean, you’re a very nice girl—and pretty—so there will be—boys will—I’m sure you’ll find a nice boy eventually.”

Sansa chuckled into her cereal. “I’m glad someone thinks so.” Then she looked up, and her lips quirked. “Of course, even if I do, he’ll never be as good as Uncle Tony.”

“Your uncle is not exactly a nice boy,” Steve pointed out. Many things, many wonderful things, but not ‘nice’. No one nice could be an Avenger. Too many hard choices.

Sansa’s smile was positively wicked.  “Well, that’s where all the fun comes from.”  Before Steve could make coherent his sputters, she continued, “And besides, that’s not true.  He’s more similar to Dad than you’ve probably witnessed thus far.”

Steve remembered the icy voices.  “Oh?”

“Self-sacrificing on the verge of stupidity?  Extreme moral standards?  Who else would he have gotten that from?”

Gendry appeared in the kitchen door before Steve even had time to make sense of Sansa’s words.

Sansa beamed at him.  “Good morning, Gendry,” she chirped.

Gendry’s sleep-heavy eyes widened slightly, and he glanced between Sansa and Steve, then back at the door.

“Is there coffee?” he mumbled.  Steve poured him a mug, being sure to leave most of the pot for Tony. “Thanks.” He slid onto a stool across the table from Sansa.

“Did you sleep well, Gendry?” asked Sansa.

“Yeah.”  He took a deep sip.  “Damn.  This is excellent.”

“Make sure to repeat that when Uncle Tony’s around.  He’ll be pleased to hear it.  He basks in flattery of his coffee choices.”

Gendry nodded.  “Is he really going to give me a job, do you think?”

Steve chuckled.  “That may be the least of your worries. I’ll do my best to stop him from buying you a house. With an attached garage. In the middle of Manhattan.”

“Do those exist?”

“If not, he’d make one.”

“Oh.” Gendry looked down into his coffee. “That sounds like fun. Do you think he’d get me a car too?”

“Yes. Especially if you’re as good a mechanic as he thinks.”

“I am.” Steve could respect that sort of unassuming, absolute confidence.

Arya knocked her way into the kitchen, pulling a sweatshirt over her head with the glazed eyes and blank expression of a sleep-walker.

“Good morning, Arya,” chimed Sansa, though she didn’t seem to expect more than the grunt she got in reply.

Genry watched her stumble in. He usually had a hard face, but it softened looking at Arya, and he was smiling with a sort of exasperated fondness as he got up and poured her a mug of coffee, which he forced into her hands.  She looked up at him, smiled slightly, and took a sip. When her face changed into ecstasy, Gendry’s smile grew into something that wasn’t quite longing.

Sansa locked eyes with Steve, her expression angelic, though her eyes evil.  She shook her head ever so slightly, a smile playing on her lips.  Then she mouthed, very clearly, “ _He’s_ a nice boy.” Steve swallowed his laughter.

“Okay, I’m not an oil monster anymore, I demand a reward.” Tony barged into the kitchen. Drops of water dripped from his hair, and he smelled a little too much like body wash for Steve to feel comfortable. “Oh, Steve, you are officially my one true love, gimme.” He made grabby motions at the mug Steve had started pouring when he heard Tony coming down the stairs. Steve smiled as he handed it over, and pretended the words hadn’t set something in him singing.

“You say that to anyone who’d give you coffee.”

“And it is true every time.” Tony inhaled the scent of coffee, and took a long drink, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he chugged. “Also, new errand for today. Get Robb classier body wash than Old Spice, because I was too lazy to find my own but this is ridiculous and not up to proper Stark playboy standards. We only have the best sort of playboys.”

Tony brushed past Steve as he moved towards the coffeemaker, then poured himself another mug-ful. Steve smiled helplessly, probably ridiculously, as Tony took another sip, and then kept talking. So far, the only way Steve had figured out to shut Tony up was to give him caffeine. Not that he couldn’t think of other ways to stop that mouth—not that he had. Or at least, not often. Not too often. Not outside of the privacy of his room.

“Uncle Tony, be a nice boy.  Steve made that coffee.  A little respect, please.” Sansa smirked at Steve, laughed in the face of Tony sticking out his tongue, then got up.  “High School train is leaving.”  She grabbed Arya’s coffee mug and set it on the counter, then pulled her sister towards the door, hollering, "Bran, you up!"  A muffled reply came from the front door.

“Can I drive?” Steve heard the younger Stark girl whine.

“No.  You aren’t awake.”

The front door slammed shut.

“Think she’s always like that in the mornings?” Gendry murmured, quietly enough that Steve wasn’t sure it was supposed to be heard.

“You could find out,” winked Tony.

*

“Don’t you think it’s ridiculously medieval that we have to line up to greet the family?” Tony remarked as Cat chivvied her children into a line. “I mean, it’s not like Benjen is some sort of king.” He paused. “Yeah, no, can’t see that. He’d probably be some sort of ranger. You know, like, out in the wilds guarding some shit that no one really cares about.”

“And what would that make you?” demanded Arya.

Cat did her best not to snort.

Tony cocked an eyebrow.  “I clearly don’t belong in any world before electricity.  Though if I were, I suppose I’d have to be a court jester.”

“Confident, aren’t you?” Steve said with a grin, and elbowed Tony in the side.

Tony winced, but he grinned back up at his friend, bright and sharp and not looking at Ned. “Says the general. Or maybe the Messiah figure. Or, you know, body slave.” Steve turned bright red, and Tony chuckled.

Sansa’s gaze flicked to Steve, with a bit more interest than Cat was comfortable with. “I’d hire him as my body slave.”

Steve made a noise somewhere between a startled yelp and a firm “no.”  But before he could settle himself enough to respond, the door swung open, and Ned led his youngest brother into the house.

Benjen had arrived around midday, when mostly everyone had been out of the house—the children at school, Tony and Steve picking up the turkey, Catelyn at church helping to arrange the Thanksgiving Can Drive.  Only Robb and Ned had been home, and Robb had been asleep until at least three in the afternoon.  Ned had taken Benjen on a hike, allowing Catelyn the time required to make her children even somewhat presentable. 

As they had when Tony Stark arrived, the lines broke.  “Uncle Ben!” Rickon had leapt forward in pure excitement, Robb stepped in for a handshake, Arya wormed her way between her younger brother and her uncle.  Sansa stood back with Bran, smiling her welcome.

Tony let them have their hug for a moment, then he pulled Rickon off of Benjen to hug his brother. “Hey there, midget!”

Benjen rolled his eyes, but returned the hug.  “I’m taller than you are now, you know?”

“You’ll always be my little midget though.  How are the woods?  Dark?  Dangerous?  Deep? Why are you so late this year?”

“Why are you so early?” Benjen shot back, letting go of Tony, “Get bored of city life?” He turned to Cat and let her hug him. “Hi Cat.”

“Benjen,” she kissed his cheek, “As always, lovely to see you.”

He looked older than he had last Easter.  There were dark rings under his eyes and his beard was thicker than it had been before.  He no longer looked the part of the overgrown teenager.  “Not a bad drive, I hope?” she continued.

“Not too bad.  They cleared seven up nicely, and there wasn’t that much traffic.  Though all the Middlebury kids were getting out, which was a bitch and a half to get through.”

“Mom.” Cat looked away from her study of Benjen to see Rickon pulling firmly on her arm. “Uncle Ben’s here. Can we do presents now?”

“There are still people to introduce,” Cat pointed out. Rickon let out a gusty sigh. Benjen laughed, and let Cat lead him towards Gendry and Steve.

“This is Gendry,” she began, as Gendry reached out his hand to shake. “He’s a mechanic in town. Tony—”

“I stole him,” Tony broke in cheerfully. “So now he’s ours.”

“My condolences,” Benjen said. Gendry laughed.

“And this is—”

“Holy shit, you’re Captain America.” Benjen’s jaw dropped, and his eyes lit up. He reached out a hand, pulled it back, then repeated this motion a few times.

“Yes, yes, this is Steve,” Tony inserted. “Steve Rogers, my baby brother.”

“Tony!” Benjen snapped, sounding for all the world like Rickon when Robb undermined his little league victories in front of Theon.

“Fine, fine.” Tony put on his most sober face and turned to Steve, who was clearly trying his hardest not to laugh. “Steve, this is Benjen Stark, Park Ranger extraordinaire, who most certainly did not keep action figures of you under his bed until he was twenty.”

“I did not!” Benjen protested, his voice going high-pitched. He swallowed, and when he spoke again his voice was lower. “Sorry. It’s an honor to meet you, Captain. I’m—I’m a huge fan.”

“Huuuuuuuge,” Tony whispered in Steve’s ear, which Benjen ignored and made Steve quake with laughter.

Cat locked eyes with Ned and shook her head slightly.  He was hiding a smile behind one of his hands.  He glanced pointedly between Rickon and Arya.  She responded by looking at Rickon and Robb.  This made Ned start shaking, trying to contain his laughter.

“You didn’t tell me he was coming,” Benjen shot accusatorily at Tony. “I would have brought—”

“Send whatever to the Tower, Steve’ll sign it, promise.” Tony stuck out his lower lip. “I still don’t get how you don’t care that your big brother is Iron Man but you still fanboy all over the place about Steve.”

“Because you didn’t fight Nazis,” Benjen retorted. “You did, right?” he demanded of Steve. “Can you tell me about that? Because I’ve read a lot about World War Two, but nothing ever really...”

“Mom.” Rickon was tugging again. “He knows everyone now. Can we pleeeeeease do presents now?”

“Rickon—mind your manners,” said Sansa before Cat could even open her mouth.  Sansa really had been very well trained.  

Rickon on the other hand...“Please, mom?”  He ignored Sansa, and looked hopefully up at Cat, eyes shining with anticipation.  

“Rickon, that’s not how you do it.  You have to ask like this,” Sansa went on.  She turned to her father, a smile so sweet and gentle crossing her face that Cat was entirely sure she could convince anyone to name her empress of the world.  “Daddy, don’t you think we should go into the living room?  Uncle Benjen has had such a long drive, and I’m sure that Uncle Tony has been waiting to give us his presents.”

Robb began to laugh appreciatively.  Ned’s eyebrows lifted. Cat was fairly impressed as well. “When you put it so....charmingly, I don’t see how I could refuse.” He raised his voice to cut over Benjen’s impassioned flow of questions. “Presents, everyone. To the living room!”

“Presents?” Tony’s voice was the loudest. “Wait, I was supposed to bring presents? Why would I want to give presents to you brats?”

“Uncle Tony!” Rickon whined. “Stop being weird and give me my present!”

“That boy,” Tony announced as he sat down on one of the armchairs. The kids arranged themselves around him; the other adults took the chairs. Steve took the seat next to Tony’s, the arms of the chairs touching. “Has no sense of irony. You need to work on that, Ned.”

“I’ll leave that to Arya.  I’m sure she’ll take great pleasure in it.”

“No!  Arya’ll be mean!” complained Rickon.

Tony grinned at Ned in appreciation.  Cat did not miss the small smile that Ned gave his brother, the one that was softer than usual, the one that did reach his eyes, almost an apology.  Tony’s grin waned a little bit.  A knot tightened in Cat’s stomach.

“So before the Tony Stark show commences,” Benjen’s voice was overly-formal, with a tinge of a British accent—the voice he usually adopted when making fun of the Mayflower Tullys. Tony raised his eyebrows, but leaned back in his chair and folded his arms skeptically.  “I would like to present my presents.” A hush fell over the room. Benjen _never_ brought presents.  This was a tradition that stemmed from Tony’s immense wealth, insane generosity, his desire to be at the center of attention at all times, and his love of making her children smile.  

Catelyn knew what was coming though, Benjen had checked with her to make sure it was ok.  She leaned back against Ned.

Benjen stood, walked to the door to Ned’s office. A drumming noise started—Cat glanced back; Tony was slapping his hands against his thighs for a drum roll. Cat rolled her eyes, but Arya grinned and added her own beat. As he reached the door he paused—the drum roll cut out—and then Benjen threw open the door, and a horde of fur and legs barreled out, which only resolved itself into six husky puppies when they launched themselves at Sansa, who was seated closest to the door. She yelped and raised her hands to ward them off, more out of surprise than anything else.

“Puppies!” Rickon yelled over the barking. He grabbed at the black one, pulled it towards him.

“You got us puppies?” Arya echoed incredulously.

“Is that okay?” Robb asked, turning to his parents. Her good boy despite everything, Cat thought, and nodded.

“You will feed them yourselves, you will train them yourselves,” commanded Ned as sternly as he could manage.

“And if they die,” Tony mimicked Ned’s tone, “you will bury them yourselves”

“Someone’s bitter their presents aren’t as good as puppies,” Benjen grinned at his brother, who shrugged.  Steve’s hand came to rest for a moment on his arm.  “There’s one for each of you, and for Jon,” he told the kids, who immediately began to sort through them. Rickon was already wrestling with the black one; Arya was laughing as a light grey one bathed her face in slobber. Even Sansa was petting the one who had curled up in her lap with a small smile. And—oh, Cat pressed her lips together to keep herself from tearing up—there was Robb, lifting a silver pup, a quiet one which had been hanging back, into Bran’s lap, and Bran was grinning as he buried his face into the fur.

“He’s so shaggy!  Look at him!”  Rickon was ecstatic, rolling around on the carpet with the black pup.  “Shaggy shaggy shaggydog!  That’s his name.  Shaggydog!”

“That’s a stupid name,” muttered Bran.

“Be nice,” Cat said to him.

“Well what are you going to name yours?” Rickon retorted, “something girly? Shaggydog is a boy name.”

“I think...” Bran held up the pup so he was looking into its eyes. “I’m not sure.”

“Well, you can’t have Nymeria,” said Arya quickly.  “Mine’s named Nymeria.”

“Why would I _want_ Nymeria?  What kind of name is that?”

“I got it out of a fantasy book.”

“This explains a lot.”

“It’s epic, OK?  And she's a badass.”

Gendry snorted and muttered something that Catelyn couldn’t hear.  Arya wacked him in the shins, and he yelped.

"Arya, watch your language," commanded Cat.  Arya rolled her eyes in response.

“I think this fellow’s a Grey Wind, don’t you?” grinned Robb, rubbing the belly of his puppy.

“That’s not pretentious at all, Robb.  Mine’s Lady, after _Lady and the Tramp_ ,” smiled Sansa.

“Because that’s not cliché.”

“Clichés are clichés for a reason.”

“Which is also a cliché.”

“Exactly. And anyway, Grey Wind is still pretty pretentious.  You told us you wouldn’t get too pretentious at Harvard.  I guess that was a lie.”

“Hey, I’m not that pretentious!” snapped Robb.

“Grey Wind?  Really?”

“It’s a great name!”

“True.  Just pretentious.  You’re not pretentious, are you, Grey Wind?” Sansa adopted a puppy voice and began petting her brother’s dog, “No you’re not!  Just your name!  Just the stupid name Robb gave you!”

“Hey, wait a year. Wait to see what Yale’ll do to you. You’ll come back all hipster and saying words like ‘heteronormative.’”

“Stop!” Sansa waved her hands frantically in his direction. “You’re jinxing it!  I have not gotten into school yet.  You aren’t allowed to say things like that!”

“Oh please, like you won’t get in.”  Robb rolled his eyes.

“You can’t know that!”

“I know a guy at Yale,” Tony threw in, breaking away from a muttered conversation with Steve, “I can talk to him.”

“Uncle Tony, I’m not—”

“It’s not nepotism if you deserve it.” Tony shrugged. “Or so they always told me.  Well, not Dad, but, you know, that mysterious ‘they’.  And anyway, Yale needs a new engineering lab, and I find that I might just have to do something about it. Yale engineering is awful.”

“I’m not going to school for engineering, or anything even close to that.”

“I don’t care. It’s a travesty to education. Do you know how bad the advising is there?”

Sansa sighed. “Uncle Tony, please don’t buy me into Yale.”

“Fine, ruin all my fun.” Tony grinned and stuck out his lower lip.

“Dad didn’t buy you into MIT, did he?” Benjen threw in. Shoot. Cat glanced between Tony and Ned, who had both frozen. But Tony forced his smile into something close to natural.

“Nope. That was all me, baby. And speaking of my brilliance—” The whole room let out something between a sigh and a laugh— “My presents may not measure up this year, but does that mean you don’t want them?”

“I want mine!” Rickon howled, rolling back up to a sitting position. “So does Shaggydog.”

“Fine.” Tony waved a hand. “Steve, would you like to do the honors?” Steve rolled his eyes, but he got up and went into the hall, then brought in a bag that was probably heavier than it looked, bulging as it did.

“There.” He set it at Tony’s feet. “Only because I wouldn’t want you to strain something carrying it in.”

Tony grinned back.  “Not nice, Cap, not nice.” Tony bent down, rummaged in the bag. “For the impatient gentleman...” He unearthed something that looked terrifyingly like a hammer, and handed it to Rickon. Sure enough, it was a hammer—not one you might get at a hardware store, but more like a mallet. “It’s based on Thor’s, pretty directly,” Tony told Rickon, “Minus all the magic and shit, because magic is just not okay. And—hit something with it.”

“Tony—” Cat started, but was cut off by a ear-splitting boom as the head connected with the floor. The dogs immediately started up a raucous chorus of barks and yelps. “Tony!” she snapped, even as Rickon’s eyes lit up.

“There’s a mute button,” he assured her, “I do actually want to be allowed back in your house occasionally.”

“Don’t be so sure,” she muttered. Then, to Rickon, “You are turning off the volume. Right now.” Rickon pouted.  One of Catelyn’s eyebrows rose, and he found the button on the base of the handle.  He might have been her wild child, but she could make him heel.

Tony went back to the bag. “For our lovely lady, here.” He pulled out three shoe boxes.  “Pepper bought them all.  She said that they would be perfect for you, especially going off to college and all.  I don’t know what they are, but she says they’re good, and Pepper’s always right.”

Sansa let out a hiss of excitement, pulling out a pair of bright gold stilettos so tall that Catelyn was immediately concerned for her safety.  “Are these Manolo Blahniks?” she demanded.  They were followed by a set of royal blue heels, and a pair of black shoes with silver buckles that looked like someone had tried to make fashionable puritan shoes.

“I don’t know.  Something Italian.  Italians are good at shoes, right?”

“You are the best, Uncle Tony!  Or Pepper is, but these certainly are!” She kicked off her Converse and slipped on the stilettos. Cat had a moment of pure feminine appreciation for them before she started to worry that Sansa might fall and break her neck in those things.

“For our other collegiate fellow,” the muscles in Tony’s arms worked this time as he hefted a bigger box out of the bag. Robb ripped it open with only slightly less enthusiasm than Rickon, then pulled out a set of speakers.

“These are awesome!” he said, pulling out a manual to look at specs. “We’ve been using shitty iPod speakers—”

"Robb, watch your language," intoned Cat at the same time that Tony interrupted, “Yeah, those are the worst, can’t party right with those. These are pure Stark made—by which I mean I fiddled with them a little bit—speakers for the discerning playboy.” Tony smirked at Robb. “I expect many noise complaints from you, young grasshopper.”

“I will do you proud.” Cat thought there was a little too much sincerity in that. She could talk to him later. No reason to ruin his fun now.

“Now for you, little girl,” he turned to Arya.  

“Hey!  I’m not that little.”

“You’re pretty shrimpy.” Beside him, Gendry nodded in agreement. “Hush now.  I have a good one for you.”

“Better than Nymeria?”

Tony glowered at her.  “I doubt it. You savages. But still worth having.” He heaved a box at her that landed on the ground in front of her with a solid thump.

Packing tape flew everywhere. For an instant, Cat really was wondering whether she was going to have to ban Tony from the house—but then she realized the gun Arya was hefting wasn’t real, as it was joined to a laser tag vest.

Arya’s voice was horrifyingly serious and her eyes positively aglow with excitement.  “Yes...” she hissed. Rickon started edging away from her.

“What about me?” Bran’s voice was quiet, but there was a harder edge to it than Cat remembered. “I hope you started planning mine recently, or else...”

Tony’s grin was startlingly bright, one of the smiles that Cat remembered him occasionally giving Lyanna. Beside him, Steve’s smile was softer, but just as excited. “I have something very special for you, my lad. But it needs some preparation. Robb, would you care to accompany us to the kitchen?”

Robb eased his puppy off his lap and stood. “Sure, but why—”

“You’ll see.” Obediently, Robb wheeled Bran out of the room behind Tony.

“Ha HA!” Arya fired her laser gun at Sansa.

“Arya, that doesn’t work when I’m not wearing the vest.”

“Oh, you will.  And I shall defeat you.”

Sansa raised her eyebrows.  “Oh please.  We both know that’s not true.  I’ll beat you wearing these heels.”  She gestured to the golden stilettos.

“I have noticed that women wearing higher heels are much more dangerous,” Steve observed, quietly but still loud enough for Sansa to hear and shoot a _Ha!_ look at Arya. “Pepper. Natasha.  Natasha’s actually more dangerous the higher her heels are on any given day.”

“But do they wear heels when they fight?” Arya demanded.

“No,” Steve admitted. Then he paused. “Well, not usually. Not when they aren’t actually weaponized.”

“Fear me, Arya Stark,” Sansa said, kicking her shoes at Arya.  Nymeria growled.  “You don’t need to fear me, puppy.  I won’t hurt you.  You’re cute!”

“She’s fierce!” snapped Arya.  “Not cute.”

Sansa rolled her eyes, and leaned down to nuzzle at Nymeria’s nose. “No she’s not, she’s adorable,” she cooed.

“So this one’s for Jon?” Ned asked, running his hand over the white pup that had come over to him and was nipping at his shoe.

“Apparently,” Benjen replied. “Unless he wants to fight for one of the others.”

“He better not,” Arya snapped.

“Shaggydog is mine!” Rickon cried, and deafened them all with another ear shattering strike of the hammer to the floor.

“Rickon!” snapped Cat, “That thing is supposed to be muted.”  She turned to Ned. “I am going to kill your brother.”

“You say that every Thanksgiving.”

“I mean it every Thanksgiving.”

“I think Jon will be fine with that one.  We’ll just have to snuggle him a lot until Jon gets back for Christmas.  Won’t we, you fine little man? Look at you!   You’re so soft!”  The white dog made to bark, but no sound came out.  

“I think he’s a mute,” said Benjen, “He does that a lot.”

“Perfect for Jon, then.  So quiet, all the time,” sighed Catelyn. She wished Jon were back. He had always been a better influence on Robb than Theon.

“How is Jon?” Benjen asked. He leaned back in his chair with the air of a man well satisfied with his presents.

“Good, last we heard,” Ned told him. “He talks to Robb more than us, but it sounds like Russia is treating him well.”

“Very well,” Arya inserted with a leer.

“Oh?” prompted Benjen.

“He seems to have a mysterious Russian girlfriend.”

“Does he now?”

“Yep.  According to Uncle Tony.  And Robb.  Kind of.  Robb won’t disclose more.”

“Meaning that we’ll just grill Jon about it over Skype until he wants to crawl into a hole and die,” smiled Sansa.

“Should prove entertaining,” said Benjen jovially. “I look forward to it.”

At the edge of her vision, Gendry leaned over to Steve, and whispered “Who’s Jon?”

Arya had heard him, though.  “Jon’s our cousin.  He grew up with us.  He’s doing a term in Russia right now.  And has a girlfriend, apparently, for the first time in his life.”

“Ah.”

“Yep.”

Cat leaned back in her armchair, watching the mechanic and her daughter very carefully.  There was no way this could end well. She blamed Tony.

It was the laughter that made her look up. Bran’s laughter, laughter she hadn’t heard in months, without any edge or cynicism, a little boy laugh. She looked at the door—and Bran, oh, Bran was walking towards her, slow and halting but on his feet, and this time she didn’t even bother to hide her tears.

“Bran!” she cried, and was on her feet and moving towards him before she could think. Ned was on his feet, the other children had all stilled. And Bran, her Bran was _walking_.

“Look!” he laughed, pulled up his pants leg to show some sort of braces. “They’re—look!”

“I think Uncle Tony won presents,” said Sansa breathlessly.

“I would say he did, yes,” grinned Robb, coming in behind Bran with Tony at his side.

Cat glanced at Tony through the tears. “How?”

“They’re basically braces. Add in some stuff from Professor Xavier with psychic uplinks and that stuff, some Reed Richards even though damn I hate that guy, and voila!” Tony made a presenting gesture. “Mobility!”

“It’s incredible,” breathed Cat.

“Important question,” said Arya, “does this mean that we can wrestle again?”

“Not just yet.” Tony broke in, quickly. “He needs to work on the uplink. And get the muscles going. And these aren’t really like legs, just a sort of something.” He grinned, tapped at the metal in his chest. “Mainly, I just wanted a metal-dependent bro.”

Slowly, very slowly, Bran bent down and seated himself on a chair. His pup leapt into his lap. “Still tiring,” he explained, when his entire family moved forward to catch him.

“You know,” said Sansa thoughtfully, “Bran’s got arm muscles now.  By the time those things work properly, he’s going to be ripped.  He’s gonna be a lady-killer when he gets through high school.”

Cat didn’t have to groan, because Robb beat her to it.  “Nooo.  Bran has to stay little forever!  I’m the lady-killer.”

“You know, Robb.  Maybe Bran should be my heir.  Lady-killer, dependent on technology, surprisingly smart beneath the beautiful surface...”

“Don’t say things like that to him, Uncle Tony.  You’ll break his poor heart,” intoned Arya.

Robb made to swat at her, but she was too far away. And then she shot him with her laser gun.

Cat eased away from the ensuing melee to stand near her husband. They were playing, her children; Robb, Rickon, and Arya starting some sort of wrestling-cum-cage fight, Sansa leaning over Bran and inspecting his new legs, peppering Tony with questions. And Bran, Bran moving his legs at Tony’s prompting, laughing. Her boy was laughing again. Ned’s arms wrapped around her, and she smiled up at him, settling against his chest.

“How long has he been working on that?” Ned asked, leaning towards Steve without letting go of Cat.

Steve’s eyes stayed on Tony, on his surprisingly gentle smile as he looked down at Bran. “Since he heard.”

Ned nodded, slowly. Cat felt the steady beating of his heart against her back.

“He really doesn’t like Reed Richards.”

“Hm?”

Steve’s face was solemn, and there was something stern in it, something older than he looked. “He really doesn’t like Richards. But the instant he heard about it, he was calling everyone he knew to help him fix it.” Steve’s blue eyes turned on Ned, piercing and calm. “He’d never tell you. But you should know.”

Ned’s chest moved as he let out a long breath. “Of course he would.” His arms wrapped tighter around Cat. 


	5. 4. Wednesday

“You had to marry a Mayflower family,” Tony muttered, “We could have spent today relaxing, playing games, chilling.  Doing something fun. Or, you know, getting a root canal. But no, we have to polish silver...”

“You would be doing something useful if you weren’t polishing silver, mark my words,” growled Catelyn.  She had not slept well the night before.  Ned had tossed and turned and the mattress had constantly shifted beneath her.  Not to mention Rickon had still not turned the damn mute button on the hammer that Tony had given him.  “You’d be peeling potatoes, or cleaning the nice dishes, or _something_ Tony Stark.  So I’ll have none of your guff.”

“Guff?”

“I know what that means!”exclaimed Steve proudly.  Tony ignored him.  


“Can’t I go chop some wood for the fire?” he suggested eagerly, with his most charming grin. Beside him, Ned rolled his eyes, and Benjen scrubbed harder at a candlestick.

But Catelyn remembered Tony’s past excuses, how he had insisted that they get a Tempur-Pedic Swedish Sleep System in the guest room for his benefit, how he had begged off moving boxes out of the attic, and so she said, “I don’t think that would be good for your back, Tony.”  Her smile was perfectly in place, and she was suddenly aware of where Sansa had learned it, “but Steve can go.”

“Absolutely, ma’am.”  And he was out the door.  Tony let out a plaintive huff.  


“You know, it’s not _that_ tarnished, this year,” suggested Ned, holding up a fork and sponging silver polish over it.

“I’ve definitely seen it worse,” agreed Benjen.

“All the same.  If you hadn’t married a freaking _Tully_ , we would have a lot less silver to polish.  That’s all I’m saying.” And though he didn’t mention anything, Cat noticed, how his eyes kept flicking to the door Steve had left from.

“I am holding a potato peeler.  I would feel no shame in using it on you,” said Catelyn.  She unleashed the expression she used when Robb got it into his head that he didn't have to help out because he was "old enough" not to be forced to do chores. Based on her brothers-in-law’s reaction to her faces, it was effective.  They both turned their attention back to her heirloom silver and kept their gobs shut for a few minutes.

It was Benjen who broke the silence.  “Tony—”

“Yes?” Tony sounded unbelievably eager to be talking again.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Well...Duh.”

“Why on earth aren’t you tapping the awesome that is Captain America?”

If Tony had been drinking anything, he would have spat it out. Instead, there was a pregnant pause, then, Tony began to sputter. “What? He’s a—I mean, he’s not—we’re not—it’s—”

“Even I know he’s gorgeous, and if I know he's gorgeous...” Benjen went on, unperturbed by his brother’s splutters. Cat made an agreeing noise. Ned shot her a look; she shrugged. “And he’s Captain fucking America. Come on, bro.”

Tony gave his candlestick a vicious swipe with his rug. “He’s Captain America. Let’s not tarnish that, okay?”

“You want to tarnish that,” Benjen grinned.

“I want to tarnish everyone,” Tony threw back, too flippant to not be avoiding the issue. “So that’s not really a thing. And what do you know? Do they even have women in your wilds?”

“Well, there aren’t many women in the wilds,” suggested Ned.  “You, on the other hand, have him living in your apartment.”

“It’s not my apartment. It’s a tower. And there a number of men living there, including a god, but most of them have girlfriends. And I do have enough discipline not to jump teammates because they happen to be in my line of vision, thank you very much.”

Ned looked at Benjen. “He’s seen the Light of Monogamy.”

“The what?”

“The Light of Monogamy.  Pepper showed him.”

“Shut up!” snapped Tony. “Bad metaphors are my thing. You can’t have that one. It’s not allowed.  I trademark it.”

“In any case,” Ned’s voice rose ever so slightly, ignoring comletely Tony's protestations with the well-practiced ease of an elder brother.  


“Ned, quiet.  Sansa and Robb are still asleep.”

“In any case,” Ned repeated, dropping his voice once again, “I don’t much see that as an excuse.  Besides, it’s not as if you brought these other gods and men into my house for Thanksgiving.”

Tony opened his mouth, and closed it again.  When he opened it, he rounded, much to her surprise, on Catelyn.  “I blame you for this.  You and your stupid Made-By-Paul-Revere-Puritan-Silver-Set.”

Cat raised her hands and held in a grin. “I did nothing.”

Tony jabbed his finger at her. “You did everything. And,” he turned back to his brothers with a pointed glare, “I brought Steve because he didn’t have anywhere else to go and I thought he could do with a good Thanksgiving. Anything wrong with that? Anything too prurient? Because I thought I was just doing a good deed, but, you know, maybe Tony Stark can’t do that and I was just being selfish, I’m not really sure but I bet you’ll tell me.”

“You know something,” said Catelyn, “the reason that ours is a ‘good Thanksgiving’ comes mostly from me.  God knows Ned doesn’t know how to put on a good dinner party.  You know who does?  My mother and my Mayflower-Tully-Family.  So you can get off your high horse and polish the silver of the family that _didn’t_ end up in the sewer of New England.”

“Sewer of New England?” Tony’s eyebrows were raised.

“That’s what my American History textbook called Rhode Island.  And I hold it to be true.  Good god, you lot came out of Rhode Island—what else could it be?”

“Massachusetts snobbism if ever I saw it.  And I’m from New York.  I know snobbism.”

“You are all crazy,” grumbled Benjen.

“Wilds snobbery, that,” Tony told Ned confidently. He set down a shining candlestick and picked up a fork. “That’s especially bad because they have so little to be snobbish about.”

“Well at least I’m not staying away from some guy who clearly wants me out of some misplaced nobility!” Benjen retorted, his cheeks going red, a brighter flush than either of his brothers’.

“Misplaced nobility?” sputtered Tony, “Misplaced nobility?”

“Yes, that is what I just said, Tony.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“What do you think I mean?”

“They sound a little like Bran and Rickon, don’t they?” Ned stage whispered to her.  She laughed.  

“More than a little.”

“No we don’t,” whined Tony.  He actively adopted Rickon’s intonations.  “And I don’t know what you mean, so you’d better tell me right now.”

“He means,” Ned told him, in a lofty tone remarkably similar to Robb's, “That you should do something about you and Steve.”

“But— not you too!” Tony dropped the fork and picked up a spoon. “There is nothing between me and Steve Rogers. Okay? So just leave it.”

“Hey, I’m not ‘too’-ing.  I’m merely translating.  I might go so far as to deem that last protestation bullshit, but I am not entirely sure I’m willing to commit to that.”

“Very good politicking, my love,” smiled Catelyn.

“Thank you.”

“Almost as good as when Lysa was trying to hide that she was actually in love with Petyr.”

Ned shuddered, undoubtedly remembering the way that Lysa had blushed and giggled and protested that she had been having that torrid affair.  Tony laughed.

“See Ned?  Even _Cat_ knows that that was a poor deflection.”

“Watch yourself, Tony Stark.  Or you can polish all the dishes we haven’t taken out since our wedding. I’m sure they are nice and tarnished for you.  And speaking of poor deflections...”

“Yes? What about them?”

“You. Steve. How you’re in love with him.”

“Love!” the spoon almost went flying out of Tony’s hand with the strength of his wave. “I am not in love with Captain America. I mean, yeah, sure, he’s hot, who doesn’t know that, he’s Captain America, he’s by definition the pinnacle of human perfection. And yeah. He’s a nice guy. See above, Captain America. But I am not in love with Captain America.”

“No,” Ned agreed, with that deceptively soft tone he used when going in for the kill. But before he could finish, Benjen cut him off.

“You just want to bang him.”

“I don’t want to bang him.  Oh.  All right.  I do want to bang him.  But who doesn’t? I mean, tell me you don’t want to bang him, in that secretly gay part of you. It’s...”  Tony actually fumbled for words.  And in his pause, Ned finished what Catelyn knew he had been trying to say initially.

“You’re in love with Steve Rogers.”

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it, took a deep breath, and opened it again.  “No. Okay? No. I can’t be. Not just because—well, Captain America. But because Steve is a good guy. And I am not. And that is—I’m not going to be selfish, okay? I already almost fucked things up with Pepper. But not with Steve. Not this time.”

The kitchen was silence for a moment.  Then Ned began to guffaw.  “The Light of Monogamy.”

“Shut up.”

“You see the li-ight,” Ned sang. Benjen joined in on the last syllable as an out of tune harmony that made Catelyn's ears almost shrivel up.

“I do not. I will go out and find the nearest warm body—no, I will find fucking Theon Greyjoy—and I will fuck him if it—oh, hey Robb!”

Catelyn whirled around to see her eldest son standing there.  Robb blinked twice, then turned around and left the kitchen, mumbling something about how he should never have gotten out of bed.

“Anyway,” Benjen went on, after they all waited, by mutual consent, for Robb’s footsteps to fade, “That’s a stupid reason.”

“What is?”

“That whole noble give-him-up-to-save-him thing. Stupid. Steve is Captain America, Tony! He can make his own decisions about who he wants to bang.”

Tony shook his head as he placed the spoon very carefully on top of the other already polished utensils. “Not this time. He’s—I know the media, and I know the modern age, and I know me. It’s better all around if I let well enough alone.” There was something sober in his voice, something that made Cat look closer at him to see what was different. There was no smile in his face, for the first time in ages, no self-mocking cynical smirk. Just the truth as he saw it, and his determination to face that head on. Maybe that was why he was Iron Man, she thought, that core of steel that had remained through everything else.   


“You know that’s not true,” said Ned very quietly.  His big grey eyes were perfectly even as they looked at his younger brother, and Tony avoided his gaze.

“It is,” he replied gruffly.

“It’s not.  And you can’t convince me of that.  And I think you can’t quite convince yourself of that, no matter what you say.”

“I can.”

“No, you can’t.” Ned put down his fork and leaned forward, so Tony was forced to either quite clearly stare at his feet or look Ned in the eyes. Predictably, he chose the latter, his eyes big and wide and almost childlike despite their sharpness, a boy looking up at the big brother he adored. “You cannot convince me that you are so bad a person you shouldn’t go after the man you love. You can’t convince me you’re a bad person, period. You never have, Tony. Not even when you were really, really trying.”

*

Steve found Gendry lying on the couch. He didn't have anything else to do and, well, he had been meaning to ask.  Sometimes Tony's generosity took him too far, and, well, even Steve knew people woul always take advantage of money.   “Not to be rude,” Steve said, sitting in the armchair adjacent to the couch, “But why are you staying here? Don’t you have an apartment? Not that you should be there, just—I can imagine it’s a bit awkward, staying here.”

Gendry shrugged, but scooted up so he was sitting. “Plumbing issues.”

“Huh?”

“The landlord said there were plumbing issues and we all had to get out. I mentioned it to Tony when he found the garage, and, well,” Gendry spread out his hands as if to say, here it is.

“So, there’s a reason Tony dragooned you.”

“Yeah...I mean, it beats the Ski-tel on route seven.  That place probably has bedbugs or fleas or something.  And the Starks are good about it.”

“They seem to be used to adopting people,” Steve agreed. He wasn’t entirely sure anyone had been warned he was coming. He was certain Tony hadn’t said anything. Mrs. Stark had taken it in stride though, with an elegance that suggested years of practice.

Gendry stared idly at the ceiling. “Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“So—Tony wasn’t entirely clear about what exactly I would be doing for him.  You don’t know by any chance, do you?”

“To be honest, I’m not sure Tony knows,” Steve admitted. “He’ll probably just take you in the first day and let you do whatever you like. That’s what he’s done with past strays. Or he’ll hand you off to Pepper.”

“Pepper?”

“Pepper Potts. She’s CEO of Stark Industries. She’s...” Steve took a moment to decide how to describe the inimitable Pepper Potts, the woman who intimidated him even more than Natasha. “She’s Tony’s conscience, assistant, general manager, boss, and everything else he might need at any given moment.  If he doesn’t know what to do with you, Pepper’ll figure something out, and it’ll probably be perfect.”

“Huh.  Ok.  This sounds good.”

“Were you worried?”

“Well, you know, apart from being scared that it wouldn’t actually happen—”

“It will.”  Steve would make sure of that.

“I was scared that he’d chuck me into one of his Iron Man suits and make me his mini-me....which would be cool and all, but I get motion sickness...”

“Don’t worry about that.  He wouldn’t throw you into harm’s way like that.  He might milk your brain for all it’s worth and then some, but he won’t put you in danger.” Tony only ever put himself in danger.

“Good. I don’t think I’m cut out to be a sidekick.” Gendry tilted his head. “For one thing, I’m too old. No boy wonders here.”

Steve chuckled.  “He _might_ try to put you in the spandex though.”

Gendry’s eyes widened.  

“Kidding.”  Steve raised a hand slightly.  “Kidding.  I have the monopoly on spandex.”

“What about Black Widow? She wears a lot of spandex.” Gendry’s cheeks went a little red. “And she wears it well.”

“She does at that,” Steve agreed, because you would have to be inhuman not to notice that. Or something more—Thor definitely had praised Natasha’s figure before he realized she took offense at being called ‘Most Lithe!’. “She says it’s more aerodynamic, but we all have our suspicions.”

“Is it?  More aerodynamic?”  Gendry had a look on his face similar to Bruce’s when confronted with a particularly impossible theorem.  

“Not noticeably.” Steve grinned, and Gendry chuckled. Then he sobered, his face going blank and unreadable again.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“Fire away.”

“How do you and Tony deal with the age difference?”

“The what?” Steve made a concerted effort not to let his voice go higher-pitched.

“The age difference.  I mean, you’re a lot older, but he’s a lot older, and it’s all confusing...”

“Well,” Steve swallowed, “I mean, on the team we also have a millennia old alien, so age isn’t really taken into account. We’re all—”

“No, I don’t mean on the team.” Damn it. “I mean, you know, between the two of you.”

“Between us?”

“Yeah—in your—” Gendry trailed off. “I mean, you’re—never mind.”

“Why do you ask?” Steve asked. When in an untenable position, divert the enemy’s attention. Now was not the time to think about—whatever it was.

“Well...” Now it was Gendry who looked flustered—more so than he already had.  He glanced around, at the hallway towards the kitchen. Then it was as if the floodgates had opened. “So, I thought she was older, right?  She brought the car in and wanted the bumper replaced and she was cute and we chatted pretty easily, and I thought, what the hell, I haven’t found anyone else in this ho-dunk town.”  Steve privately thought that Gendry and Tony would get on quite well: they had the same opinion of Ned's hometown. Though he had to say, it was pretty ho-dunk. He was all for small town America in theory, but where were all the people? “So I fix the car cheap for her, and get her number, and then I realize she’s a sophomore in high school.  I mean fuck—that’s six years younger than me.  And definitely not legal.   _Definitely_ not legal.  So I think, ok, fine, that’s done then, and I’ll go on my merry way...and then I get dragged up here and she’s everywhere and fuck.”

“Um...” Since when was he the relationship counselor? He had had a total of one relationship in his life, and it had been in the 40s and had been ended by his flying a plane into the arctic.

“Yeah,” sighed Gendry, rubbing his hands through his hair.  “I’m fucked.  And need to get to New York.”

“Well, at least Tony’s good for that, right?” Steve tried.

“Yeah.” Gendry looked up to meet Steve’s eyes. “I mean, she’s a mature sophomore, right? She’s got her shit together way more than most of those girls.”

“Sure?”

Gendry opened his mouth to say something, but the kitchen door banged open and Arya shouted, “Oy, Gendry!”

“Yes?” he called.  He raised his eyebrows significantly at Steve.

“Come play laser tag.” It was clearly not a request. “We’re seeing how fast Bran can run with his new braces.  But it would be unsportsmanlike to kick the crap out of him without a teammate, so you need to come play on his team.”

“Do you have a teammate?”

Her grin was quick and sharp and fierce and shockingly like Tony’s before he went off and did something remarkably stupid and brave. “I don’t need one.”

“Then I think Bran and I will teach you what it means to be destroyed.”  Gendry pulled himself off the couch.

Arya was calling “Fat chance,” over her shoulder.

“Fuck,” Gendry mouthed to Steve, and they were both gone.

*

Catelyn liked to think that she didn’t worry excessively about her children.  When Bran had had his accident of course—that had been different.  They hadn’t been sure that he would live, and so she wasn’t allowing herself to feel bad about being an obsessive mother.

But with Sansa’s boyfriends, Arya’s grades, Rickon’s biting problem, Robb’s being at school, and even Jon’s reticence, she hadn’t shown whatever worry she had felt.  Indeed, she had done a very good job of taking it in stride, in letting her children come to her when they needed her.  She was proud of that.

But it was past midnight, and Robb wasn’t home yet, and somehow, she found herself awake, wiping the table over and over again, wondering if he would end up driving home drunk on icy roads.

She knew he drank.  She knew he drank a lot.  She knew from the way he casually sipped his beer, when he hadn’t been allowed any until he was eighteen—they had been stricter with him and Jon than they were with Sansa.  She could hear it in the way that he talked about partying hard at Harvard over the phone with his friends.  She could feel it in the way that he smiled at her and reminded her too much for comfort of Brandon.

It made her stomach turn that he might drive home drunk.  

So she cleaned.  She organized the kitchen, preparing for the cooking that hadn’t been done that afternoon.  She took deep breaths, and tried to think of Bran triumphantly sprinting across the yard with a laser gun with Arya, dog barking at her heels, moving back in retreat, laughing as loudly as he could with a bright flush to his cheeks and his eyes. Where was Robb?

She cleaned, knowing that Ned was happily asleep upstairs, that Sansa had left her phone on the kitchen counter, that Arya was nursing bruises on her shins, that Rickon had been coerced into removing the batteries from his Hammer, and that Tony was sitting only feet away in the living room, working on something that had sounded far too technical for her to try and understand.

But she did not know where Robb was.

Her little boy.  He would always be her little boy, though Bran and Rickon were both younger, and built more slightly than Robb ever had been.  She would never forget holding him in her arms, the way that he had always tried to wriggle into her lap, even when she was pregnant with Arya, and the way that he had become her lieutenant when it was clear that she had too many children to be able to boss around flawlessly (though she had learned that belatedly).  Her little boy, with russet curls and blue eyes that looked like her father’s.

Drunk, in a bar somewhere, probably.

One of the puppies barked from the living room.

“Oh, be quiet, you dog you,” Tony snapped without heat. “I don’t have—”

The door swung open; heavy footfalls came through the hall.

“Fair point,” Tony said, presumably to the dog, and then, louder, before Cat could hurry in and make sure her baby was all right, “So, Robb—good night?”  

“Pretty awesome, yeah.” The footsteps stopped, then started again, going into the living room. Springs groaned; he must have sat down. “There was this girl...”

“There’s always a girl,” Tony agreed with a chuckle. “How hot?”

“Nine, easy.”

“Four at most,” Tony corrected. “Divide by two at a bar, come on, Robb, you’ve got to know these things.”

Catelyn rolled her eyes.  Trust Tony to encourage him.  

“Anyway, she was hot, I was chatting with her—wasn’t planning on doing anything, you know?  Because I can’t very well bring her home, can I?  And then her boyfriend comes up and picks a fight with me.”

“I trust that you kicked the crap out of him.”

“Na.  He was massive.  Probably would have ended up dead if I’d tried.  So I chatted with him a bit about the Red Sox, and bought him a beer and by the end of it, his girlfriend was rolling her eyes all the time and trying to get him to leave.”

“Sounds like you made a friend, Robb.”

“I always make friends.”

“What was this one’s name?”

“...I can’t remember.  Joe?  Jon?  Greatjon!  That was it!  Greatjon.”  

“There’s a name. What was the girl’s name?”

A pause. “No idea.” Oh, her little boy.

“Classy, man, classy. You’ve got to know their names for the lawsuit.”

“Oh please.  Like I’m ever going to do something that would lead to a lawsuit.  What kind of lawsuits come out of a little fun?”

“All of them, in my experience.” Tony said with a laugh. “At least you knew Theon’s name.”

Catelyn covered a gasp with her hands.  Then, took herself in hand.  It was a generational difference—that was all.  Something you can joke about with your cool uncle but not your mother, right?  

“Tony!” Robb whined. “We didn’t—well, I don’t think—I mean—I can’t really remember.”

“Welcome to my life,” Tony agreed. There was a sudden sharpness to his voice. “Or my life before Iron Man, that is. I think I remember at least half of it. Hmm, no, I wasn’t even thinking about college. A third.”

Robb was silent.  Tony’s words hung in the air, colder than any other he had spoken to her son in Catelyn’s memories, harsher than she thought he could have ever managed to her children.  To her husband, he only needed a sip of whiskey to get there, but never to Robb.

She hated him for it, she loved him for it.

“Did not remembering the thing with Theon scare you, Robb?” Tony asked, deceptively casual, “Or that thing with the duck and the hockey rink? Because you’ve got to get used to it, if you’re taking that route. Which, I mean, you want it, all the more power to you, I’ll tell you where to score the good shit. But don’t think you’re going to remember the fun parts. Only the waking up in the morning on the street covered in vomit with paparazzi flashing bulbs in your eyes. Which is totally not  a cool way to wake up with a hangover, let me tell you. Paparazzi are bitches. They follow you and—not the point.”

There was the sound of scrabbling claws, and the shifting of someone over the creaky floorboard by the front door.  A thump, and, then Tony said, “You’re going to be a sucker for that pup, aren’t you?”

“His belly’s so white and soft!”  A pause, then, “It’s only a little fun, Uncle Tony.  And I am careful.  Most of the time.   _Everyone’s_ careful at Harvard.  Don’t know if they’re going to run for President and some photo of them smoking weed will show up on the internet.  But sometimes...”  Robb sighed, “Yeah.”

“Look, kid. I’m not drawing any parallels here. Your parents are a hell of a lot better than mine. You aren’t already an alcoholic, for one. But watch out. Slippery slope. I won’t have your parents accusing me of being a bad role model or shit like that.” Tony’s voice quieted. “And I don’t want you dying an early death like I would have.  And like my brother did.”

“I don’t mean to make everyone worry about me,” mumbled Robb.  

“Be glad you have a family to worry about you.” Something creaked. Tony must have shifted on the couch. Tony’s voice adopted a baby-tone.  “And a great puppy to worry about you too!”

“Aw, Uncle Tony, do you feel left out that you didn’t get a puppy too?”

“Yes, yes I am. He could have been my canine sidekick. Irondog, Iron Shepherd.”

“Iron Shepherd?”

“Well, you can’t say Iron German Shepherd.  It doesn’t scan properly.  And you can’t say Iron German, but that’s for different reasons.”

“Right...”

“And one last point—you are never running for President.”

“What?”  Robb sounded bemused.  “Why not?”

“Because I was playing on your computer earlier—you need a better password—and I now have all I need to ruin you politically.”

Robb groaned.  “Uncle Tony,” he whined, “That was—”

“And besides,” Tony rode over him, “Politics are boring as fuck.  Philanthropy.  That’s where you’ll be good, mark my words. I can get you started.”

“Maybe I want to go into politics.”

“Fine. But know I have blackmail on you if you want to do something stupid like start registering superheroes or something. Know I can stop you.  Also, if anyone else has access to those photographs, destroy their computers.  No, but seriously.  Do it.  I don’t care if they’re your friends.  Even Theon would turn on you for the right price.”

“Uncle Tony...”

“We’ll blow it up together. It’ll be bonding or something. Explosions always make for good bonding. Now get to bed before you fall over.”

“Yeah, yeah,” grumbled Robb.  Catelyn heard him moving up the staircase, and the scampering of Grey Wind following him to his room.  The door to his bedroom opened and closed, and she heard him _fwump_ onto his bed above the kitchen.  

Cat stood perfectly still for a moment, and Tony walked into the kitchen.  She stared at him for a moment, and he stared back. The light brought out the shadows under his eyes, made him for once look his age. Look tired.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Glad to be of service.” He turned to go. Then added over his shoulder, with the same steel in his voice, “I hope that undid some of the damage.” 


	6. 5. Thanksgiving

“What’s this I hear about a girlfriend?”

“Subtle, Arya.  Really subtle,” berated Robb lightly. Then he turned to the computer. “I didn’t say anything, Jon. I swear. It was all Tony.”

Jon looked uncomfortable, his face illuminated by his screen.  “I’m kind of seeing someone, yeah.”

“You’ve been holding out on me!” accused Arya.  “I’m going to steal your dog.”

“Don’t you dare, he’s mine!” yelped Jon.

“He’s so soft and snuggly,” Sansa cooed, cuddling the puppy to her chest.

“See?” Arya glared pointedly at the screen. “I think I shall keep him.  Also translate his name.  Призрак is a dumb name for a dog.”

“It is not.  It’s a great name.  Especially for a white one, isn’t that right призрак?”

“Ghost.  His name is Ghost.  By the time you get back for Christmas, that’s going to be the only thing he responds to,” grinned Arya.

Jon sighed.  “Ahh well.  Worth a shot.”

“Girlfriend,” prompted Bran.

“Right.  Well, her name’s Ygritte.  She’s from Sakhalin.” That was in the middle of nowhere, Steve mused. Talk about culture shocks.

“And she’s really hot,” Tony added in from his seat at the table. “I always did have a thing for redheads. There. All the pertinent details.”

“Is she still planning on coming here next semester?” asked Robb, turning away from Tony.

“Yeah, I think so.  She’s waiting to see if she gets into her study program, but she should be able to.  She kind of just gets what she wants all the time.”

“Sex good?” asked Arya.

Jon went bright red and ran his hands through his hair.  

“Aw yeah,” grinned Robb.  

“Well done,” Tony added.

“Yes, it is very good,” agreed a heavily-accented voice from off screen. Then a woman moved into view, hair bright red and curly, and green eyes alight with humor.  “Jon is very...” she asked Jon something in Russian.  

“I am not translating that for them.”  Jon’s face was even redder than before.

Neither was Steve, no matter if Tony turned to him with puppy-dog big eyes.

Ygritte was saying something, and Jon was replying in American-accented Russian, and after a moment, she threw her hands up in the air and said, “Fine, fine.  I am understanding. I will not tell your little brother about—”

Jon tackled her. She fended him off with what seemed like little difficulty, eyes dancing into the camera. She would have made a good army officer, Steve mused. Peggy would have liked her.

“Sorry about that.”  Jon was stony-faced, but back in view.  Ygritte planted a kiss on his cheek, smiled at them, and disappeared from the frame. “What were we talking about?”

“Your sex life,” Arya replied cheerfully.

“Before that.” Jon forced out between gritted teeth.

“Ghost, say hello to Jon.”  Sansa was still holding the puppy.  “He’s going to love you and snuggle you, even though I will do it until he gets back. I will be your substitute snuggler.”

“Now there’s a job,” Bran muttered to no one in particular. Robb snorted.

“That reminds me, Robb—How’s Theon?  I haven’t heard from him lately,” asked Jon.  

Robb flushed, then said brusquely, “He’s fine.  Doing well.  Back in Michigan for Thanksgiving.  I should see if Mom needs help.” He ducked between his siblings and into the kitchen.

“Robb’s not going to give you any details.  You and I should talk sometime soon.  I’ve got all the dirt,” grinned Tony.

Jon raised his eyebrows.  “Do I want to know?”

“Probably not.  But only Ned has the power to stop me on that front.”

“Tony...” Steve inserted quietly over the Stark siblings’ heads.

“Fine.” Tony heaved a melodramatic sigh. “You could stop me too. But why would you take away my simple pleasure of traumatizing my nephew?”

“Please stop him.” Steve wasn’t on camera, so Jon didn’t know where to turn to face him. But he clearly looked around, hoping for backup. “Please.”

“So, does the KGB want your ass yet?”

“Da,” came Ygritte’s voice. “My father is very angry.” Jon’s face was bright red again, and he was clearly looking at her.  His jaw was slightly dropped, and his eyes wide.  Then he jerked his attention back to the screen.

“Must almost be time for you all to be eating,” he said quickly.

“Trying to get rid of us, Jon?” asked Rickon.

“I imagine he’s a bit distracted,” grinned Sansa.  “Redhead’s are very distracting, if I do say so myself.” Tony nodded emphatically.

Jon rolled his eyes.  “I am relying on you, Rickon, to eat as much turkey on my behalf as possible, all right?”

“You got it!” Rickon saluted.

“Dinner!” called Catelyn.  “Table time, chop chop. You can talk to Jon later when he’s not half-asleep and there isn’t hot turkey on the table.”

There was a chorus of farewells, and Steve thought he caught a glimpse of a bra hitting Jon in the face before the screen went dark.

“That didn’t look like sleepiness,” Tony muttered into Steve’s ear as he rose to move to his assigned spot. His breath whispered against Steve’s hair; a hint of stubble brushed against his cheek. He willed himself not to turn red.

“Yeah, well—do you think Mrs. Stark needs any help?”

“She’s got all her minions.  Don’t worry about it. Why do you think she had so many kids? She just wanted a constant stream of people to fetch and carry for her.”

“If I had wanted that,” Mrs. Stark retorted, bearing a dish of mashed potatoes into the room with blue and white checked oven mitts over her hands, “I would have hired people. I don’t know why I had the kids.”

“Mo-om!” Rickon groaned, trotting up behind her with a gravy boat.

“Well, they were fun to make,” Ned added over Rickon’s head.

“Da-ad!” It was Robb’s turn to groan, as Mrs. Stark shot her husband a glare.

“Ned,” she snapped, “Not in front of Rickon!”

Ned shrugged, unashamed, and accepted Tony’s fist bump.

Catelyn watched as everyone settled into their seats and began to pass dishes around, loading their plates as much as they could.  Rickon, it seemed, had taken Jon’s instructions about the turkey very seriously, and claimed a drumstick and a large chunk of breast meat. The only person with more meat on their plates was Steve.

“Rickon, if you are going to take that much meat, you are _not_ going to eat like a barbarian, and you are going to eat all of it.”

Rickon rolled his eyes.  “Easy.”

“Don’t be so sure, young man.  That much turkey has downed bigger and braver men.”  Tony gestured towards Steve with his forkful of mashed potatoes.  “You really should leave it to trained professionals.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“Good man.”

“Sansa,” said Bran, after they had all settled into their meals.

“Yes?”

“Now that I have legs, do you want me to haunt Harry?  I could do it.  It would be fun.  He wouldn’t realize it was me for two days, easily.”

Sansa cocked her head.  “No,” she said at last, “I think that won’t be necessary.  It’s much more effective if I just sit there maligned in calculus getting everyone on my side, I think.”

“Two questions.  One—,” Tony turned to Bran, “haunt how, precisely? Because let me tell you, it is not as comfortable as it might look to die and come back to life. And two—” he turned to Sansa, “Who’s this Harry fellow, and do I have to make him regret being born?”

“I’d probably just hang around outside his window with a flashlight for a while,” shrugged Bran.  “I dunno.  Hadn’t thought it out fully.  Maybe I’d make my puppy howl or something for effect?”

“Have you named it yet?” Rickon demanded.

“Not yet.  I’m still thinking.”

“And Harry? I’m really good at ruining lives. Just ask Pepper. I’ve ruined her life at least twice.”

Sansa cut daintily into her turkey, and popped a piece into her mouth.

“Harry Hardyng is my ex.  He’s a bastard.” She cut off another piece, swallowed. “Which is rather synonymous, actually.” Oh, her poor Sansa. She shouldn’t be that jaded until at least college.

“What did this one do?” asked Tony.

“Cheated on me,” she said with the lightness of a cheerful admission, but an edge of steel.  “Knocked up some girl in Burlington.”

“I shall make sure he is never employable.  And the other one.  What was his name again?  Joffrey?”

“Yep.”

“They’ll be blacklisted.  Except for janitorial positions, of course. Unless you have other humiliating position preferences.” Catelyn would have been more worried if he didn’t threaten this every time anything happened to one of the children.

Sansa snorted.  “I think that’ll do nicely.”  She reached for her wine glass.  “Here’s to college boys being better than high school ones.”  She took a sip, perhaps for a moment longer than Catelyn would have liked. “Not that I have much hope. Boys will be boys, right?”

“Honey...” Catelyn broke in, “That’s not true. It’ll get better.”

“Of course it will.” She swirled the wine in her glass in a way that was much too practiced for a high school senior, and leaned back with world-weary sophistication. Cat wondered how much she was playing this up. Not enough, she worried. “Because all men are just like Dad.”

“All men should be just like me,” Ned called down the table. “Especially my sons. If my sons grow up like me, I shall consider my duty done.”

“Now that’s a terrifying thought,” Benjen observed.

“Seconded!” Tony raised a wine glass of water.

“Doesn’t Freud say that I’m more likely to be attracted to someone like my dad?” shrugged Sansa.

“Ahhh, don’t say things like that!” groaned Arya, shivering slightly.  “Guys like dad would be gross. I want something different.”

“You know,” Tony leaned towards Sansa, and spoke quietly over the argument that broke out on the other end of the table about Arya’s potential husbands, spoke seriously.  Catelyn had to strain over Robb’s loud protestation of “No boys for you.  Ever.” to Arya to hear it.  “It might seem like it now, but, seriously, as a guy who’s been more than a bit of a bastard in the past, not everyone is Joffrey Baratheon and Harry Hardyng.  Some guys are Captain America.”

“Oh, I don’t know Robb," Ned announced to the table, "If Arya sees the Light of Monogomy, I wouldn’t be too upset with her dating.” 

“Well, I now have a dog I can train to attack.  That’s all I am going to say,” shrugged Robb.  “Don’t date douchebags, Arya.”

After another sip of wine, Sansa spoke as quietly as Tony. “I know.” Then her voice changed, got less sad and more teasing. “So why aren’t you hitting that?”

Catelyn was able to keep the water in her mouth, but she began coughing violently.

“Are you all right there, Light of my life?  Monogamous Light of my life?”

“That is not becoming a thing, Dad!” Robb protested.

“Too late,” Benjen sighed mournfully into his wine glass. “He’s still doing the ‘Winter is Coming’ thing Brandon started when I was eight.”

“That’s because it is an awesome phrase,” Tony threw in. A lot of the water in his glass was gone, Steve noticed. “And, hey, relevant now.”

Arya rolled her eyes.  “It’s already winter,” she grumbled.  “It got dark at 4:30 today.  If that’s not winter, I don’t know what is.”

“How about snow?” Robb suggested.

“There’s snow in October. That doesn’t count,” Arya retorted.

“I don’t know.  Snow usually means winter.  In most of the normal world,” said Gendry, taking a sip of wine.

“Oh, shut up Massachusetts,” snapped Arya, stabbing in his direction with a fork.  “You’re not helping.”

“I’m not trying to help.  I’m trying to say that it’s been winter here ever since I had to scrape ice off my windshield, which was easily a month ago.  Ergo, the phrase ‘Winter is Coming’ is not currently applicable, nor shall it be until at least March next.”

“You know, you can fix the icing problem pretty easily,” Tony leaned around Sansa to contribute. His eyes were bright with new ideas. “We’ll work on it. It’s a simple matter of—”

“Tony,” Steve and Ned groaned in unison.

“Really?” asked Gendry, shifting his focus to the other end of the table. “What do you do?”

“Stupid mechanic things.” This time, Arya did hit him with her empty fork. “Now is not the time for stupid mechanic things. It’s winter.”

“Ow!” yelped Gendry.

“I didn’t hit you that hard.”

“No, your dog just bit me.”

“You probably stepped on her.  Come here, Nymeria.”

“Arya,” called Mrs. Stark, “ _No_ dogs at the table.”

“I am not going to feed her—”

Arya let out a huff.  “Fine. Make Rickon send Shaggydog away too.”

“Rickon...” The full force of Mrs. Stark’s disapproval fell on her youngest son.

He gave her a bright, innocent smile. “He’s not at the table.”

“There is more than one dog running around under this table,” Arya retorted. “I can feel it.”

“The force is strong with this one,” Benjen nodded towards Arya.

“Mm,” Ned agreed, with a dignified sip of his wine. “We must train her well.”

“She is too old to be a Padawan learner.”  

“No,” Tony threw in, “No making references to Episode I.  Episode I is dead to me.”

“Fine.” Benjen glared at his brother.

“Besides, she’s more like Princess Leia than anyone else,” supplied Gendry.

“Woah, stay away from me then,” Robb held out both his hands to ward her off. “And Bran, yeah, you better get away too.  Bran’s probably the most dangerous actually, since he’s part machine.  But still.  And I’ll warn off Jon.”

“No, it’s my long-lost twin brother I need to worry about, not you twits. Mom?”

“If you had a twin, you killed him in my womb,” Mrs. Stark said perfectly cheerfully.  “Thank the heavens.  I would _never_ want two of you.”

“Twins aren’t so bad.”  Tony’s eyes were slightly dull, and he began lifting a fork full of stuffing to his mouth.

“Lies,” Ned shot back. “Do you remember the time with the treehouse and the squirrell?”

Tony nearly spat out the stuffing with his snort of laughter. “Oh right! Sorry, Ben.”

Benjen looked pointedly away. “I’m still not speaking to you over that.”

“It was Lyanna’s idea!  I swear!”

“You would blame your dead sister who can’t fight back.”

“Benjen,” inserted Ned. “Tony clearly couldn’t have come up with an idea like that.”

“Yeah.  I never would have used curry. That would be mean even for me.  Lyanna, on the other hand...”  Tony smiled distantly, looking at no one in particular.  He didn’t look like that often—nostalgic, a little rueful, a little fond. Steve would have liked to meet the woman who could put that look on Tony’s face. He hadn’t looked like that over Pepper. Steve wondered if Tony would smile like that if something happened to him.

“What happened, Uncle Benjen?” asked Rickon loudly.

“What?  What?  Oh!  Nothing.  Nothing at all.  Nothing happened.  Ever.”

“Come on, Uncle Benjen!”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“He’s as bad as Rickon is,” Arya grumbled to Gendry.

Gendry chuckled.  “I suppose it’s a youngest sibling thing, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.  Morons.  The lot of them.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad.”

“You don’t have to live with it.”

Gendry wiggled his head from side to side, as if unsure of what to say, then tried, “Be grateful for what you have on this Thanksgiving day?”

“That’s a good idea, Gendry,” Mrs. Stark announced. She set down her wine glass, and waited for everyone to quiet—which happened as soon as everyone got a look at the steel in her face. “Why don’t we do that?”

“See what you’ve done?” Arya muttered to Gendry, and elbowed him in the side. He simply smiled and moved her elbow away.

Mrs. Stark either ignored or didn’t hear her daughter. “I think we should all go around and say what we’re thankful for this year.”

There was a collective groan—a groan that Steve noticed Ned was very careful to absent himself from by taking a deep draft from his glass of wine.

“Come on, mom.” Robb’s voice was very precisely low, as if he was making a conscious effort not to whine.

“It’ll be fun!” Mrs. Stark replied serenely. “I would quite like to hear what everyone is grateful for.  Was that you volunteering to start, Robb?”

“It was absolutely not,” he snapped back.  

“We all know that Robb is just not a grateful person,” smiled Sansa, “I mean, look at Theon?  Taking Robb under his wing at Harvard, and Robb just hasn’t ever thanked him for it, has he?”  She kept talking over the quiet sounds of Tony choking over his laughter.  “Didn’t even invite him home.  Sent him back off to the middle of Lake Superior with his crazy dad and frankly rather pedophilic uncles instead of being the nice Stark we were all raised to be and bring him home for Thanksgiving.”

Robb looked like he wanted to sink into his chair.  “You don’t bring _just-friends_ home for Thanksgiving, Sansa,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, that would just be crazy,” Tony agreed. Steve shot him a hard look, hopefully not made less hard because he could feel himself turning red. Tony just grinned brightly—and a little softly, Steve almost thought, a little less like his usual flashy mirth, like there was something beneath it. Steve looked away, back down at his plate, and wondered if he was hallucinating the feel of Tony’s gaze on him even then.

“You said that you and Jeyne were _just-friends_ when she came home last Thanksgiving,” pointed out Arya.

“We _were_ just friends!” insisted Robb.

“I suppose if we use the college definition of the type of friend that one might hook up with sometimes.” Sansa lifting her ginger ale to her mouth, looking positively delighted.

“Sansa—” Mrs. Stark snapped. “Not in front of Rickon.”

“Oh, as if Rickon hasn’t figured it out by now,” sighed Sansa.

“Figured what out?” asked Rickon.

“I’m not telling you if you can’t figure it out.  Clearly you don’t deserve to know.”

Unlike Robb, Rickon had no scruples when it came to whining.  “Sansa!”

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Bran patted his brother on the hand with ponderous dignity.

“You’re not that much older than me!”

“Yeah, but I know what they’re talking about.”

“So what?”

Bran opened his mouth, then closed it again, then spoke. “You know, I have nothing to say to that. How do you argue with something so vague?”

“Oh, padawan,” Sansa let out a long hum of knowledge, “You have so much to learn. Watch the master.  Dear, darling, sweet, little Rickon—”

“Oh, this is going to be good,” grinned Tony.

“I think I can kick her from here,” Arya muttered.

“It is a way to prove yourself worthy of all knowledge that we—your much beloved older siblings—can provide.  You must show to us that you are worthy of our patronage.  And how shall you prove this to us?  You shall find out what hooking up is, all on your own.”

“Hey, Uncle Tony?” Rickon fixed his best puppy-dog-face on his uncle. “Can I borrow your phone?”

“I don’t know.” Tony drew the Starkphone out of his pocket. “Is phone a friend allowed? Because I’m not sure you want to phone some of my friends about this.”

“Rickon, what do you think?  Do you think that we will respect such base measures as that?”

“Base measures?”

“Lowly, dishonorable, plebeian.”

“Sansa,” cut in Mrs. Stark.

“He’s just going to look it up on the Internet anyway, Mom. I’m simply making sure he’ll do it in a safe environment where we can explain whatever he doesn’t get.” She smiled, ever so sweetly, “Besides, I promise you, you don’t want him on UrbanDictionary at the Thanksgiving dinner table.”

Gendry burst out laughing.  

“What is that?”  asked Mrs. Stark carefully.

“Oh mother,” said Arya, “You have so much to learn.  Watch the master,” she pulled out her phone.

“No.  I veto this. Phones away.  You too, Tony,” commanded Ned with the force of the head of the family.

Arya obeyed, but Tony pouted as he pushed a few buttons. “I could be doing important Avengers work.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed. He hadn’t heard anything. Tony probably would hear first, by virtue of things like Google Alerts that Steve still hadn’t quite figured out. “Are you?”

“No,” Tony admitted. “Everything seems quiet back in the city. Clint says the closest thing to action they’ve seen is Tasha attempting to not kill him.”

“She hasn’t?” It often paid off to make sure of that.

“Not yet. If he keeps on with the sniping...”

Benjen looked between Steve and Tony. “You two live very interesting lives.”

“We’re just doing our job,” Steve shrugged as he cut another piece of turkey. It had ceased to be weird to him. Which was probably saying something in itself.

“Our job just includes Doomy monsters of Doom.” Tony smirked. “And I mean that literally. Doom actually called one of his robot army-things that. He is so tacky sometimes.”

“Supervillains these days.” Ned shook his head.

“Tell me about it.”

“In my day,” Steve added, “Villains didn’t bother naming their armies.”

“Oh really, old man?”

“And look how well it turned out for them,” grinned Robb.  

Steve cocked his head. “Well, it ended with me frozen for seventy years, so...”

“Sorry!” Robb nearly yelped. Steve hid a grin. It was so easy to guilt trip people sometimes. “I forgot—I mean, I didn’t—”

“Well done, Robb.  Very smooth,” sang Sansa.

“Anyway,” Robb said loudly. Across the table, Tony caught Steve’s eye. His eyes were dark with laughter, and he raised his glass and tipped it in a salute. Steve let his grin show, just a bit, and Tony’s lips quirked upwards. Once again, Steve pulled his gaze away, to his food, and pretended that simple smirk hadn’t sent waves of heat through his body as Robb mumbled, “We’re all very thankful that you got pulled out of the ice, Captain.”

“Yes, indeed,” chortled Sansa.

“Yes, very thankful,” said Cat.  “Now, as I recall, Robb, you were going to start with saying what you were thankful for.  Would you like it to be that, or have you thought of something else again.”

“You know,” said Gendry, “I’m very grateful to be here.”  His words were slurring slightly.

“Yes, yes,” snapped Arya, moving his wine glass away from him.

“Wait a minute,” Tony said slowly, his brow furrowed and comprehension dawning in his face.  He turned to Sansa.  “You...”

Sansa winked.

“Well done, madame!” he tipped an imaginary hat to her.

“Thank you, thank you.  And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for these meddling kids!”  She glared at Robb.  “Especially the oaf.”

“I guess they just didn’t know what your master plan was.”

“Morons.  This is why I can’t do anything here.”

“What were you trying to do?” demanded Arya.

“I was _trying_ to do nothing.  I _did_ successfully steer the conversation away from the gratitude ordeal so we wouldn’t have to go through with it, until that one,” she gestured at Robb with her knife, “had to bring up being _thankful_ for _things_.”

Even Catelyn had to be mildly impressed with that.

“Speaking of being thankful,” she inserted, before Robb started up more bickering. “Who wants to go first?”

“Mom,” said Bran, “Look, I know that this is something you want, but really, I think we all know two things.  The first, is that no one really wants to do this.  Even Dad, though he’s being diplomatic enough not to say anything, which you know means he _really_ doesn’t want to do it.” Cat raised her eyebrows at Ned. He lifted both his hands, palm out, in his patented, don’t-look-at-me gesture. “And two, no one is going to be as grateful as I am to have use of my legs back, so this is really a moot exercise.”

“Point me,” Tony announced to the table at large.  

Cat didn’t really have any way to counter that. And if they all felt so strongly about not vocalizing their emotions, who was she to hinder their poor communication skills?

“You know,” Sansa looked thoughtfully at Bran, “I think I shall keep you.  That was well played.”

Bran nodded at her, a playful grin on his face.  “I learned from the best, I think.”

“Hey!” snapped Robb.  They ignored him.

“What say you to further collaborations?” she asked lightly.

“I would not be averse.”

“Oh no,” Tony sighed dramatically, and rested his head in his hands.

“What?” asked Arya.

“They’re going to take over the world.  They’re going to be evil geniuses who try to take over the world.  And then I’m going to have to kick their butts, and I couldn’t do that to family.”

“Oh, Uncle Tony.  That’s never going to happen.”  Sansa leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek.

“That’s what all villains say,” Tony shook his head. “And then they gloat—don’t gloat, by the way, monologuing is a bad habit for a villain to get into and you should not go down that road—and then they get Hulked. Don’t make me have to Hulk you. It’s really not a pleasant experience.”

“It is not,” Steve agreed. He and Tony both shuddered. “And Tony, please stop advising your relatives on how to be better villains.”

“Oh, come on, Cap, you know you hate listening to monologues. It’s all, me me me, and, I am so mighty you can’t defeat me. It’s boring.”

“It’s useful.”

“They need better lines, is all I’m saying. And better evil laughs.”

“Sansa, if you take over the world, can I lead your armies?  I think I’ve gotten quite a bit out of my military history classes,” called Robb down the table.

Sansa and Bran glanced at each other. “Yeah, sure,” Bran said.

“That would be acceptable,” Sansa agreed.

Steve shook his head. He muttered something and Ned laughed.

“Can I be your assassin?  You send me in in the dark of the night to beat up bitches?” Arya put in.

“I think that would fit her skill set,” commented Bran.

“Yes, I rather think so,” agreed Sansa.

Arya nudged Gendry, “You’re building me all my cool spy stuff, right?”

“‘Course,” he said with a vague grin down at her.

Cat hid her grimace by looking at her plate, but apparently not well enough, because Tony leaned over and whispered in Cat’s ear, “Never underestimate the hot mechanic.”

Catelyn stiffened, glaring at him.  “Arya, go put the pies in the oven.”

“But mom—”

Tony was chuckling.

“Now.”

“Fine.” She shoved out her chair with a scrape of wood.

“I’ll help,” Gendry said getting up.

Cat glared at Tony again.  He smirked back.

Sansa was smiling.

“What can I do?” demanded Rickon of Sansa.

“You can go into the kitchen and start getting out things to make whipped cream!” Cat suggested immediately.

“That’s not what I meant!” whined Rickon.

“Well it’s what you’ll do. Go. Now.”

“Why me?”

“Because you’re the most likely to ruin the mood,” Sansa informed him cheerfully. Rickon grumbled, but he went. Cat let out a bit of a sigh. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Arya to find a boyfriend. But—she felt better now that they were chaperoned.

“You know how you’re going to get into Yale?” Tony commented, “Being omniscient.”

“Omniscience,” sighed Benjen, leaning back in his chair and taking a sip of his beer.  “I remember Lyanna and Brandon getting in an argument about what that word meant.”

“Yes.  Both of them so wanted to be right, and yet...” Ned shook his head sadly.

“And yet the great, late Starks were not the brightest bulbs in the tree.” Tony grinned at his brothers.

“The tree?”

“I was thinking Christmas lights.  It got away from me.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said Benjen snarkily.

“It so often does,” Tony agreed. Then he looked up at Steve, and his smile flashed again, bright and quick. “That’s why I have Steve to catch the conversation.”

“I—” Steve held up his hands. “I don’t—”

But Tony was already moving on. “Didn’t Lyanna think it meant ‘all the sciences’?”

“And Brandon thought it was a type of fish.” Ned agreed.

Sansa leaned over to her mother, close enough that probably only super-soldiers could hear her whisper, “How old were they?”

“Brandon was twenty three.” Mrs. Stark pressed her lips together to hide her smile.

“He always did have an unfortunate fondness for fish.” Benjen raised his beer to his lips once again and took a deep swig.

Tony murmured across the table in something that he might have imagined was an undertone, “Not fond in the fun way.” Steve could feel himself turn red.

“To Brandon—I hope he is enjoying his watery home.”  Ned was holding his wine glass aloft, and everyone at the table followed suit, murmuring “To Brandon.”

Steve’s eyes met Robb’s, and, upon seeing his confusion, Robb explained, “He died in an ice fishing accident.”

“Ice fishing?”

“A _tragic_ ice fishing accident,” Tony corrected. “Everyone forgets the tragic thing. If it wasn’t tragic, it was just sad, so it was tragic.” He leveled his pretend-glare at Steve, the one he used on Dummy and Clint. “Tragic. Important adjective.”

“A mild overstatement,” muttered Ned.

“It most certainly was not.”  Steve thought that Tony looked almost like a turkey, so much did he swell up with indignation.  It almost made him laugh.

“Tony—” Ned caught his wife’s eye, then rolled his own and put down his wineglass. “Fine. It was a tragedy.”

“Yes, it was. I once wrote an epic poem about it. I was pretty drunk, but, hey, that’s the best time to write epic poetry, right? I think there was something about a goat in it somewhere.” He turned to Steve. “Maybe I’ll show the poem to you some time.”

“Is this a poem that I would want to see?”

“Probably.  It had better metaphors than I come up with usually.  I promise.  And because it was about my brother, I restricted the sexy-fun-times to a minimum.”

“You have them at all?”

“Oh yes.  This is Brandon!  It was an effort to keep them to a minimum at all.  God, he just got it on all the time.” Tony shook his head. “My hero.”

“Still?” Ned inserted.

“Always. That man just got all the girls.” Tony paused, then tilted his head to the side. “Not that I want all the girls now. Not me. I am moving in a monogamous direction. Monagamous-ward. Monogaward.” He was? Steve swallowed. Tony—Steve had enough problems dealing with flirting-Tony. A Tony who was capable of being committed—not that Steve thought he wasn’t, he had seen the fallout with Pepper—but who was willing to be with someone else—with him? No. Probably not. He was probably just saying that to put off his family.

“No, no.  Stop right there.  If you keep doing this, Ned will be unbearable after you leave,” cut off Mrs. Stark.

“Too late, my love.  Too late.  I quite like monogaward.”

Bran groaned.  “No.  Please Dad, no.”

“Yes, my son.  You should, when you are ready, move monogawardly.”

“ _No_.  You are not adverbing that, dad,” insisted Sansa.

“I already have.”  Ned’s grin was full of mischief, and for the first time since Steve had been in Vermont, he saw the physical resemblance between Tony and Ned.

“If you continue on this path, I will sic Arya on you, and you won’t like that,” threatened Robb.

“Oh?”

“ARYA!” hollered Sansa.

“What?” came the call from the kitchen.

“Dad’s being Dad!  Help!”

“You’re on your own for this one.  I’m taking care of pies.”

There was the sound of a deep chuckle and a squeal.

“Hot mechanic,” Tony sing-songed at Mrs. Stark. She scowled.

“Isn’t that you?” Steve asked. Then he heard what he had said. “I mean—not that I—what you call yourself?”

Tony’s lips curved upwards, slow and almost predatory, and his eyes glinted gold. “I’m the hot engineer, Steve,” he said, in something almost like a purr that sent a rush of heat right through Steve, “Get it right.”

Luckily, before Steve had to find some way to respond to that when he wasn’t sure he could form words, the kitchen door swung open.

“No.  Stop it.  You’re going to drop them,” snapped Arya.  As one, the table twisted towards the kitchen. Bran half-rose, ready to rescue the pies at all costs. Gendry had a pie in each hand and a pie on each forearm, Rickon bopping along behind him.  “How are you not burning your arms off?”

“I’ve worked in diners.  Do not underestimate my skill,” Gendry shot back.  “Bran, would you mind taking—there we go.  Thanks, bro.”  And slowly, carefully, the pies made their way to the table.  

“Working in diners does _not_ mean that you’re allowed to put my mother’s pies at risk.”

“They were not at risk, oh ye of little faith.  They were perfectly safe.  As you might or might not have noticed, I have very capable forearms.”

Arya’s jaw dropped.  Then she wrenched it shut, scowling at him. Tony was nearly choking on his laughter, enough that Steve was actually worried about the color he was turning.

“Arya, fetch the ice cream,” commanded Mrs. Stark, her expression cold.  Arya turned on her heel and returned to the kitchen as Gendry settled in his chair and began helping Bran serve the pies.

“If you start eating pie before I get back,” came the call from the kitchen, “I will murder every one of you in your sleep. Except for Steve. I like Steve.  Steve wouldn’t do that to me.”

“That’s just because he doesn’t know you,” Sansa called back, and cheerfully grabbed for a slice of pie.

It was an incredible phenomenon.  The Starks had spent all of dinner bantering away, chatting lightly, arguing familially, but the moment the pies were on the table, silence descended.

The Starks took pie seriously.

“Pie,” Ned said grandly what seemed like hours later, though it was probably closer to ten minutes, leaning back and placing both his hands on his stomach, “is good.”

“Brilliant deduction,” Bran drawled, starting in on his third piece of pie—pumpkin. The other two slices had been one pecan, and one apple. Cat had decided not to comment. It was Thanksgiving. And Bran was old enough to make his own over-eating mistakes.

“Thank you,” Ned smiled benevolently down the table at his son.

“As someone widely recognized—”

“By himself”

“Yes, thank you Arya, by myself as well as many others, as brilliant,” Tony went on smoothly.  “I can safely say that yes.  ‘Pie is good’ is, in fact, a brilliant deduction.”

“Why aren’t you finishing your pie, then?” demanded Benjen, jabbing his fork (laden with a slice of pecan pie and a heavy dollop of whipped cream) across the table at Tony.   

“I am getting there.   One must savor one’s pie.   It is known.”

“The pie is very good,” Steve agreed.  Tony closed his mouth on whatever he was about to say.  “I’m in awe, Mrs. Stark.”

“Thank you.” She figured he was telling the truth. He had eaten at least a pie already (not all apple, for all Tony’s jabs). “We never did say what we were thankful—”

“No!” a chorus cut her off.  No one spoke for a moment, as everyone looked at each other; Robb finally took the lead. “Mom, one can’t have serious conversations over pie.”

“I beg to differ!” Tony cut in. “Not that we should do the thankful thing, that’s not going to happen. But I have had many serious conversations over pie. Many of my best friends have been made over pie. And only one of them was because he hit me in the face with a pie, so you can stop reaching for that pan, Arya.”

“We agreed never to speak of that day.” Steve said sternly, though his lips hinted upwards.

“Hey, it was all Clint’s fault, he totally started it.”

“What kind of pie was it, Uncle Tony?” asked Rickon, a sinister curiosity gleaming in his eyes.

“Banana Cream is the best for pie-ing people.  Unfortunately this one was peach.” Steve let out an involuntary snort of laughter.  “Which was delicious, though less humorous.  And a bit of a waste of a pie.”

“Bruce made you a new one.”

“Which Thor promptly threw into my face,” Tony countered. “I was so loved that day. You were the only one who didn’t participate in that glorious Midgardian tradition of showing love through application of baked goods to the face. I think I felt a little neglected.”

“That’s two people you are friends with, Uncle Tony,” pointed out Arya.

“I was already friends with Thor.  Didn’t really know Clint at that point, you know, because of the whole brainwashing thing.”

“Tony—”

“What? No one holds a grudge. I only hold a grudge over important things, like pies.”  He smirked, and popped a piece of his apple pie into his mouth.

“Is there a lot of baking going on in the Avengers Tower?” Cat decided it was time to turn the conversation in a direction which would give Rickon and Arya fewer ideas.

“We try to fend for ourselves. Some attempts are...better than others,” Steve admitted with a wry smile and a flush.

“Who’s the best?” asked Gendry.  “I want to know what to avoid.  Ow!  You didn’t have to kick me!”

“I didn’t kick you!” growled Arya, “You must have banged your leg into the table.”

“I’m pretty sure you kicked me.”

“I’m quite confident I didn’t.  Sansa, will you pass the pecan pie, please?”

“Never eat anything Thor touches,” Steve ignored the byplay with the ease of someone who had lived with Tony for a year. “Except for PopTarts. He’s an expert at making those. But Clint makes the best omelets.”

“Omelets?” Benjen asked, leaning forward, “Why—”

“Shit.” Tony’s chair scraped back as he bolted to his feet, his fingers running over his phone. There was no laughter in his eyes. “Cap—”

“I got it.” Steve was on his feet an instant behind him, also holding his phone. His face was different, somehow; no flushing. He seemed larger, sterner. “Mrs. Stark, do you mind if we use your television?”

Cat didn’t realize she was standing as well, but she was.  “The remote controls are a bit weird.  I’m sure you can figure it out, but let me get it going for you.”  

“We’ll be fine,” Tony said, fast and sharp, still not looking up from his phone, and then they were out of the room. “Damn it, Cap, I should have installed those cameras...”

“What’s going on?” asked Rickon.

“Avengers things,” Bran muttered, rolling his eyes at his little brother.

Everyone sat silently for a second, as the sounds of the news came on. Then, as one, they all rose and stampeded towards the living room.

It wasn’t pretty.  It wasn’t ugly.  It was... weird?

“Really?” Tony was saying, as he and Steve as he stared at the TV screen. They were watching CNN, which was reporting live from a helicopter over Brooklyn.  Tony had muted the TV, and had done something funny to it the quality of it so that it was even clearer than the best high definition television she had seen at Walmart.  This proved interesting, given what the televisions were showing.

Steve’s knuckles were white around the phone he was talking into. “Giant turkeys? I feel ridiculous even saying it.”  There were at least twenty of them running through Prospect Park, each of them easily bigger than the house they were standing in.

“Try fighting them,” a voice came from the phone, loud enough for all of them to hear. “I’m not sure whether I should send one to be pardoned or not.” Why would Tony put him on speaker—oh, of course—for Steve, who then broke in.

“Widow, what’s your status? Iron Man and I can be there in—”

“We’re fine,” came a female voice, dryly.

“Yeah, I mean, what sort of Avengers are they if they can’t deal with giant mutant turkeys?” Tony added, then winced as one of the turkeys fell, ponderously, onto a tree. A streak of black flipped away from it—that must have been the Black Widow.

“Aye!” this voice boomed. “It is the most sport I have had in years! Much like the bilgesnipe hunts of my youth!” Another turkey flew across the park to the sounds of rolling laughter and a crack like that of thunder.

“Iron Man, find whatever the hell is making these turkeys,” Steve barked. “Hawkeye, are the civilians out of the way?”

“Yep. We’ve got a police blockade up all around the park. We do know what we’re doing, Captain.”

“C’mon, Hawkeye, let him do something, he feels so sad when he’s left—Thor, on your six.” Tony was bantering, as usual, but there was something different about him; something sharper and harder, and he stood straighter and more tense than Cat had ever seen him stand.

Another crack, and another turkey fell.

“Where are they coming from?” Steve muttered, and ran his hand through his hair.

“They’re replicating,” the woman said.

“Oh, joy of joys. This would happen in Brooklyn.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry, Cap,” Hawkeye went on. Something flashed out of a window of a nearby building, and a turkey fell. “But do you know the commute I had to get here?” Cat couldn’t even follow it, the turkeys and Thor’s golden hair and the sounds of trees cracking. She grabbed Rickon, held him against her side.

“You flew,” Tony pointed out.

“And it was a long flight—shit, Widow, watch where you’re dropping those things!”

“Hawkeye, Iron Man—”

“Okay, fine, we’re shutting up.” To Cat’s eternal surprise, Tony did. Tony had pulled a tablet out of—somewhere—and was now typing furiously on it, muttering to himself; Steve watched the fight with wide eyes and the occasional barked commands, his fists clenched at his sides. Cat glanced sideways; the whole family huddled in the doorway, wide-eyed. Robb’s mouth had dropped open.

“Got it,” Tony suddenly snapped. “I got the signal and its source.”

“About time. I feel so unpatriotic.”

“You are unpatriotic, Hawkeye. Flatbush and Church. Thor—”

“I am on my way.” A final whack of his hammer, and then there was a flash of sun glinting off—was that armor?—and Thor flew away.

“Cap, that’s not going to stop them, just keep them from replicating. We still need—”

“To contain them. Okay, Hawkeye, take east. Widow, west. Thor can clean up from the south once he’s done.”

“Okay.”

“Roger, Rogers.”

Tony snorted. “That’s still funny.”

“It wasn’t funny the first time. Thor?”

“Captain!” this time, the thunder sound came from the phone. “I have defeated the last of these mighty foes guarding the machine.”

“And did you destroy it?” Tony demanded.

“I have hit it with Mjolnir. It…did not hold up well.”

“Well.” Tony nodded. “That’ll do it.”

“Was anyone there?” Steve asked, more an order than a question.

“Nay.”

“Iron Man—”

“Already on it. I’ll see what I can do from what Thor left.” Tony went back to his tablet.

“And I shall back to the fray! Come, Hawkeye, Widow. We must hunt!”

“Hunt turkeys,” Hawkeye moaned. “What is my life?”

“Really?” Widow broke in. “This is what makes you think that? Not Algeria?”

“I try not to think about Algeria.”

“Come now, Hawkeye, you must help corral the beasts! It is the only way to do the thing properly!  Do you not have glorious hunts like these in Midgard?”

“‘Fraid not.”

“Okay, I’ve got what I could from here, we should send SHIELD even though they’re incompetent at life and really, can I just send SI, that would be way more efficient—cover north; we’ve got runners to Grand Army Plaza.”

Steve’s eyes flicked across the screen, then to Tony, then back to the screen. “Hawkeye—”

“On it.”

The turkey which had been on its way towards the subway station fell, tripping the turkey behind it so it fell as well.

“Good.”

“Oh, wow, turkey dogpile,” Tony tilted his head. “Turkeypile?”

“No. Neither of them.”

“Aha!” Another turkey collapsed onto the ground—the last Cat could see, on the TV, and then the news cut away. “We have vanquished the last of them.”

“At least it was holiday themed,” Hawkeye pointed out. “Can we go home and eat—nope. I don’t want to look at turkey ever again.”

“We’ll just have the stuffing,” Widow said. “We’ve got clean up, Cap. Go back to your Thanksgiving with Stark.”

“Widow—”

“It’s fine, Steve.” Her voice softened, minusculely. “Stark, stuff him full of pie.”

“Yes ma’am!” Tony clicked his heels and saluted. “And Hawkeye, if you touch the pie  that we were specifically saving for when Bruce gets back—”

“Would I ever?”

“Yes.”

“Aye, I am afraid so, friend Hawkeye.”

“Absolutely.”

“See? I win. Stay away from my pie. And tell Fury to get the readings as quick as he can and send them to me and Bruce and then we’ll do the real work.” He pressed a button; turned off the phone. They both seemed to take a breath, then to deflate, to relax.  Then, slowly, he and Steve turned to face the crowd in the doorway.

“Hi!” Tony chirped, clearly ignoring the tension.  “Enjoy the show?”

No one said anything.  

“Wow.  Glad to know our efforts were appreciated.”

She didn’t know how he got a hold of it, or found the right size batteries, but Rickon slammed his hammer on the ground and said, “Friend Steve, Uncle Tony, that was marvelous!”

Tony turned wide eyes on Rickon. “You and Thor are never allowed to be in the same room. Ever.”

“I want to be Thor when I grow up!” Rickon smashed the hammer into the ground again. Cat opened her mouth to say something—anything—but Arya had already plucked the hammer out of Rickon’s hand.

“You get this back when you earn it.  That should be around the same time that you know what ‘hooking up’ means.”

“Arya!” whined Rickon.  “It’s mine!  I’m the only one who can use it.  It only responds to my hand!”

“Oh really?”  Arya raised the hammer, as if to test throw it—then Sansa ripped it from her hands.

“No.  Mine now,” was all she said.  Her grip was firm, and it was clear that the hammer would know no other master—not that night, anyway.

“That was _incredible_ Uncle Tony!” breathed Robb, who seemed to have only just remembered how to speak.

“Thank you, my good man.  All in a day’s work.  Well...not really, actually.  Multiplying mutant turkeys are rather rare.  But you get my drift.  Who wants more pie?”

“Too late.” Bran sat at the table, and had, during the commotion, gathered all the pies around his seat. “They’re mine now. All mine!” he cackled.

“Now that,” Tony observed in an undertone to Steve, as the rest of the children set up a loud cry of protest, “is evil.”

Steve nodded silently. Tony shot a look at him, his eyebrows drawn together in something that might have been worry if it had been anyone other than Tony Stark; Steve shook his head minutely and shrugged. Tony raised his eyebrows, but turned to the children.

“Come, fellow warriors!” he cried, in a fairly good imitation of Thor’s booming voice, “We must take back the pies of glory!” Arya let out a blood-curdling scream, and they all, even Sansa, raced back into the dining room.

Steve hung back, looking at the darkened television screen as if he weren’t really seeing it.  

“Everything all right?” asked Cat, quietly.

“Yeah.  Just a minute.  Need to cool off a little bit.  Not everyone can shake combat mode so quickly.” He paused, then, “Not sure if Tony has a combat mode, actually.”  

Cat nodded.  Then, Ned spoke.  She hadn’t even been aware that he was still standing there—she had thought he had followed the children and his brothers back into the dining room.  His face was serious—more serious than she had seen it in a good long while.  And there was a hint of nervousness, a hint of fear, in his grey eyes.

“Steve—”

“Yeah?”

“Tony does a lot of dangerous things. I can’t stop him; neither can you. But don’t let this one hurt him.”

Steve’s head rose, and there was a steely determination in his face, almost the same expression he had used to look at the battle.  Something resolute, something noble. “I won’t.”

*

“Has Fury told you anything yet?” Tony threw himself into the chair next to Steve’s with an irritated huff. “Because he hasn’t said anything to me and even with SHIELD incompetency they should know something by now. Maybe I should go back and check if they’re purposefully delaying or something because Fury wants to be a dick.”

“Fury isn’t delaying,” Steve told him, without heat. “It’s Thanksgiving.”

“And when has that mattered to SHIELD?” Tony scowled at his phone, then slid it back into his pocket. “They’re robots, right? We’ve decided that.”

“You’ve decided that.”

Tony grinned, that quick flash of mirth that always sent Steve’s head reeling, even back when he had thought Tony was everything he didn’t understand and didn’t like about this century. “That I did. Because they are.”

Sometimes it just wasn’t worth it to argue with Tony. “Fury still isn’t purposefully not giving you information.” Steve leaned back, stared into the fire that Ned had lit before he and Mrs. Stark went up to bed. He saw Tony playing with his nieces and nephews. Saw Tony grinning at him over the Thanksgiving table, comfortable and different at the same time, still filling the room completely. Saw Tony next to him in this room, watching the team and cracking jokes and still fidgeting because he thought he should be doing more.

“Because he’s never done that before.”

“Tony...” He didn’t want to think about that now. Didn’t want to be Captain America, in the room lit only by the warmth of the fire and the faint blue light of the arc reactor, so Tony seemed to glow, his face bright and mobile. He would rather be Steve, here, in Tony’s family home. The home Tony invited him into. The family who had accepted him, even if he could see the tension they all pretended wasn’t there.

“Yeah, yeah, sorry, no mission talk, I get it. So how was your first modern Thanksgiving?” Tony would be the one to ask him that, to cut the bullshit and confront the problem, like how he nagged and pushed at Bruce and didn’t let himself be afraid.

“It was—it was great.” Nothing like he remembered, which was what he needed—a new Thanksgiving for a new world.

“Good, because I know the whole clan can be a bit much, especially now that Sansa’s gone all evil, we should probably do something about that eventually, because I’m actually not entirely kidding.” Tony’s fingers skimmed over the arm of the chair, always in motion, like he couldn’t deal with sitting still, with staying in one place. He hadn’t stayed here, had flown off to the big city and bigger tower. But he still came back, had still turned pale when he heard the news about his young nephew.

“Why did you do that for Bran?” Steve asked, out of the blue, but Tony never minded that, was too used to doing it himself.

“What do you mean?”

“I saw how much work you put into those...braces.” Had seen Tony disappear into the workshop for weeks, only coming out to fight and consult with Xavier and Richards, and when Pepper or Steve had managed to convince him to sleep or eat. Pepper had told him, muttered to him as they watched him work through the glass doors and conspired how to knock him out, that he hadn’t been this bad since the Avengers had begun. “Why?”

Tony sighed, shifted in his chair, so that he faced Steve. His fingers drummed against his thigh. “They’re family.”

“'Family' is fixing Ned’s car when he’s asleep, or upgrading Robb’s speakers.  Not obsessing over something until you call up _Richards_ to perfect a project.”

“These kids—” Tony stopped, and apparently actually thought about what he was going to say, which was worth remarking on. “They’re good kids. Really good kids, and they’re the light of Ned’s life, and they’re going to be all that’s left of the Starks someday, because let’s be real, I should never reproduce, that would be all sorts of not good. But—with so many of them—it’s like we're playing an awful game of law of averages. Six kids, odds are one of them's going to have something terrible happen to them.” He got up, paced towards the fire. He never did like to admit he had done something genuinely good. “I like to beat the odds.”

So did Steve, come to that.

He got slowly to his feet. Tony was staring into the fire, his head braced against his arm on the mantel. The fire lit up the subtle muscles of his back, the shadows on his neck. Steve took three strides to cross the room, put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “Tony—”

Tony turned, looked up at him, and Steve wasn’t a Boy Scout, he had always been too reckless for his own good, and he had never wanted this more, so he leaned in and pushed his lips against Tony’s. They were warm, and surprisingly soft, and horrifyingly stagnant.  He could feel Tony inhale sharply, air streaming past Steve’s skin, and his shoulder went tight beneath Steve’s hand.  Steve’s heart was pounding, and he wasn’t sure if it was from his own daring—that he was finally _doing something_ —or if it was terror that Tony wasn’t, for all his flirting, doing anything back. Tony flirted like he breathed, he should have remembered that, shouldn’t have been fooled by the pretended domesticity of the family home, and now he was—

He jerked back, let go of Tony as he stumbled backwards, uncoordinated like he hadn’t been since 1941. Tony’s eyes were wide in the firelight, and Steve couldn’t even bring himself to look away from his lips as they slowly shaped his name. “Steve...”

He didn’t want to hear this. Maybe he was a coward, maybe he was foolish, but he wanted another night to deceive himself, wanted another night to pretend that this was his life, his home. Wanted another night to remember how to control himself, to be Tony’s friend.

“Sorry,” he said, before Tony could say anything else, his eyes fixed on the rug somewhere to the left of Tony’s feet.

And then he fled, up the stairs, into his room, locking the door behind him.

When Tony’s footsteps came up the stairs, they paused for a long time in front of Steve’s room. He didn’t knock.


	7. 6. Friday

The morning after Thanksgiving, Catelyn always woke up early.  Perhaps it was because she always went to sleep early, full of turkey and wine; or perhaps it was that she had gotten into the habit of waking up early in preparation for the holiday; or maybe that she liked the hush of the silent house, with her family sleeping upstairs, all of them; most likely was that she wanted to get started on the horrifying prospect of cleaning.

She hated cleaning up after Thanksgiving.

Usually, she made Ned clean up after meals—something he was more than happy to do in contribution to the family meals, since he couldn’t cook to save his life.  But Thanksgiving incorporated her family silver, and she’d be damned if she let Ned ‘accidentally’ destroy it in the washing machine.  And, once she started cleaning, she usually just kept going and going and going until it was all done.  She wished she had enough control to stop...but not enough to actually bring herself to stop.

And so, Catelyn Stark woke up at 5:30 in the morning on Friday and made her way into the kitchen.  She saw the vast pile of dishes in the sink, the bowls, tureens, platters that all had not made it into the dishwasher the night before and, shaking her head in wonder at just how much Starks could _eat_ , she set to work.

At 6:00 AM on the dot, Ned strode in and put a pot of coffee on.  Without a word, he joined her at the sink and took the sponge from her hand and began scrubbing.

“I had that,” she murmured.

“My job.  You cook, I clean.  It’s in our marriage contract.”

She rolled her eyes.  “You are silly.”

“I know.  But still, I clean, you cook.  And we don’t want it the other way around.”

“Why are you up so early?  You’re never up this early after Thanksgiving.”

“Tony was clicking in his room.”

“Clicking?”

“Yes.”

“Is the house going to blow up?”

“Well, if it does, I’m sure he’ll buy us a new one.”

“Can we ask him for a greenhouse?  It would be nice to grow my own herbs all year around.”

“Only if you swear to keep Robb from growing other things in there.”

“Heaven forbid.”

“He was always going to have this phase.  Too much Brandon in him not to.”

“I know.  I just hope it’s a phase.”

“It is.  I know.”

“How?”

“Because.”

“That’s not precisely an answer I find heartening.”

“Sometimes dads just know things.”

“Do they?”

“Yes.”

She slipped her arms around his waist, her face inches from his.

“What do they know?”

“Oh, you know.” He flicked a bit of soapy water at her nose.

“Do I?”

“After more than twenty years of marriage, I should hope you do.”

She chuckled and pressed her lips to his.  There was something so delightful of just the two of them—the children asleep, the puppies (oh god, how had Benjen convinced her to let him give them give them six puppies) nowhere to be found—just her and Ned—

“Okay, you two are disgusting. I may puke. It’s been decades. You have too many kids. How are you still cute?” Tony threw himself onto a stool and dropped his head onto his arms.

Ned nuzzled into her hair, then stepped aside to push a mug of coffee at his brother. “Practice.”

“My least favorite thing.”

“Sometimes it pays off.”  Cat’s eyes were on Ned’s.  There were creases at the corners where there hadn’t been when she’d first met him, but she liked it.  She liked that she knew where they had come from, and what had been there before, and what was still there now.

“Oh God, no. No, no, no. I am making a rule. No soppiness right now. I cannot deal with that shit. Not now. Stop it.” He glared at them, which would have been more intimidating if he wasn’t clutching at his coffee mug like it was a teddy bear.

Cat smiled at him. “Did you sleep at all last night?” She handed off the sponge to Ned, and just cut her losses and brought the whole pot of coffee to the counter.

“Yes. Yes I did. Well, some. Not all of us can be gently rocked to sleep in the arms of our husbands of many years. But I got sleep.”

Catelyn snorted.  “Gently rocked to sleep?”

“Isn’t that what happens?”

“No,” said Catelyn at the same time that Ned said “Yes.  Yes it does.”

Cat raised an eyebrow at her husband.  He mimicked her expression until she scowled.

“No, really, I meant it. Stop being cute or I will bring Bruce here and get him very angry. No, better. I will get Sansa very angry and let her loose on all of you and then sit back and laugh as she breaks you all apart.”

“You’re all out of sorts this morning, aren’t you?” Cat raised her eyebrow at Tony in turn. He did look a little worn, she supposed, though it was always hard to tell with Tony.

“No. I am in sorts. I am in all the sorts. Me and sorts are best of friends.” He scowled into his mug. “Best of friends. And only friends. Because that’s the not confusing thing.”

The corner of Ned’s lips twitched.  “If that wasn’t begging for clarification, I don’t know what was.”

“There is nothing to clarify,” Tony shot back. Ned leveled a steady look at him. He glared back.

Ned shrugged, then turned back to the sink.

“So a kiss means something, right?”

Ned sighed, grimaced at Cat, who told him, via intensive eyebrow movements, to deal with his brother, and put down his sponge. “Hm?”

“I mean, you don’t just kiss someone. Well, I do. But you don’t. Good people don’t. Right?”

Ned looked pleadingly at her. “He’s your brother,” grumbled Cat.

“Yeah, but...you’ve done this before.”

“No.  You have done it before with Jon and Robb.  It’s not my fault they didn’t listen and then I had to answer their questions later.”

“Can’t we call it something similar?”

“I am still here, you know.  Still standing, right here. Well, sitting. In this kitchen.  By the oven.” Tony waved, then grabbed at his mug as the coffee threatened to overflow.

Catelyn ignored him.  “He’s your brother.  If I hadn’t had to handle this conversation when it was Edmure’s turn, I might concede it...but you copped out.  So it’s on you.”

“Fine,” conceded Ned. He turned slowly towards Tony.  “There are different kinds of kisses. There’s the drunk kiss—which I assume you are familiar with—” Tony rolled his eyes and nodded, “there’s the ‘I am not sure what I’m doing kiss’, which I was most familiar with back in the day,” he winked at Catelyn.  She rolled her eyes and turned back to cleaning one of the pie pans.  “And there’s the ‘I know I like you and I want to do this kiss.’” He put both hands on the edge of the counter and leaned forward. “So which was it?”

“Who said there was a kiss? Who said anyone kissed me? Maybe I kissed someone. Maybe this is hypothetical.”

“So which was Steve’s kiss?” Ned repeated, patiently.

“How do you know it was Steve? Maybe me and Gendry are actually carrying on a tawdry affair and that’s why I brought him here.”

“I might believe that if he wasn’t flirting with my youngest daughter to a degree with which I am uncomfortable.”

“Maybe I went out and found Theon last night.”

“We all know that’s more Robb’s purview.”

“Maybe—hey, I thought you didn’t know about that.”

“You know, it’s remarkable what one can pick up when one’s younger brother doesn’t do subtlety.”

“I can—no, I can’t even deny that. Fair point.” He swirled the liquid in his mud. When he looked up again, at his brother, Cat had a sudden image of Bran gazing up at Robb, all bright round eyes. “He’s a good man, Ned. I fuck things up with good people. Just look at Pepper. And—I don’t want to fuck him up.”

“Does he get a say in this?”

“He’s—he’s new to this century. New to me. He—”

“If you say he doesn’t know what he wants, I will slap you,” Cat threw in. Then held her hands up, palm out, when both Ned and Tony glared at her. “Just saying.”

“Fine. He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know what I do to people.”

“Tony.” Ned’s voice was sharp and chiding, like when he talked to his students. “You aren’t who you were ten years ago. You aren’t who you were five years ago.”

“Brilliant deduction, I know that, that’s not the problem. It’s not that. It’s just who I am, and who Steve is, because Steve is—he’s—” Tony waved around the mug in a desperate attempt to find words. “He’s upright. And I’m not. And even if he thinks he wants me—”

“He wants you.” Ned cut in. “Everyone who’s not blind can see it. And he kissed you, and he’s not a man to do that lightly. Tony,” he repeated, and ran a hand over his hair. “You are a functional human being now. You’re an Avenger. You and Pepper have managed an amicable break-up, which was neither of your faults. You can handle a functional relationship.”

“Says the man who’s still disgustingly in love with his wife twenty years later.”

“Exactly.” Ned looked over at Cat, and she smiled softly back, warmed by the love that was still there, all these years later. The love and the solidity, and the home they built. “Tony, I have seen you nonfunctional. I would have chased people away from you then.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Ned didn’t reply to the sarcasm. “You are not that person. You can handle this, Tony. Stop being a coward.”

Tony took a long, deep swig of his coffee. “Being a coward is easier.”

“That’s one vice you’ve never had.” Ned smiled then, the smile Cat knew, had seen between the brothers before, that meant I’m sorry and I love you and all the other things the emotionally repressed Stark men could never say.

*

Tony was, of course, in the garage. Because it couldn’t be easy, could it—not only did Steve have to apologize for making things awkward with the best friend he had in this century, he had to do it while swallowing down the _want_ of Tony in a ripped t-shirt with the arc reactor shining through, oil smeared across the muscles in his arms, looking utterly in his element.

Or at least he had, until Steve knocked on the side of the door and he glanced up from—whatever he was tinkering with, Steve couldn’t even quite tell; maybe something that once was a scooter crossed with a rocket ship?—and his eyes widened and his knuckles tightened around the wrench. “Steve! Hi. Didn’t think anyone knew I was out here. Didn’t think you knew I was out here—not that you shouldn’t know, I just thought you were still asleep or running or doing that whole living a healthy life thing that I can’t get a hang on but you do so well, which was not the point, and...”

Steve swallowed down the urge to cut him off with a fond eye roll. He wasn’t allowed eye rolls. Not right now. And especially not fond ones. So he let Tony’s voice roll over him until Tony wound down—a slow process, accompanied by some confusion, as if he weren’t used to not being interrupted in the middle of sentences.

“Yeah, and, anyway,” Tony finished, “just thought I’d see what was happening with this—what even is this? I don’t know. What was I doing? Do you think it’s supposed to go into space?” He hit the—thing—with the wrench, it bounced off. “Huh.” He narrowed his eyes at the workbench in suspicion. Steve clenched his fists at his side. This wasn’t going to get any easier. He wasn’t going to shut off wanting Tony in a day. He had to do this.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out. Tony drew back, eyes wide again, like they had been last night. After Steve had mauled him. “For last night. I shouldn’t have—it was completely out of line—I’m really sorry—it was just a, a, a thing—I hope it won’t ruin our friendship.”

Slowly, slowly, Tony set down the wrench and wiped his oily hands on his jeans. Then he took a step forward, a smile hinting on his lips, though his eyes were still wide and a little panicked. “Back right up there a sec, old fellow.” Steve swallowed an involuntary laugh at the insult that wasn’t an insult, at how even now Tony could make him laugh at himself. Tony took a breath, the light on his chest rising and falling for it. “I think there’s been some miscommunication here. You seem to be operating under the assumption that I was an unwilling participant.”

Steve froze.  

“On the contrary,” Tony continued.  “I’m pretty sure you were provoked. A lot, really. I’m a shameless flirt, if you hadn’t noticed.”

“I know you flirt with everyone, Tony,” Steve forced out. He was Captain America, damn it. He could hold it together. Though Tony’s taunting was meaner than he had expected. “I shouldn’t have taken that as more than it is.”

“Oh God, you’re thick, aren’t you?” Tony threw up his hands in exasperation, and took another step towards Steve. “Yes, I flirt with everyone. I don’t—unless you listen to the tabloids, which really, don’t, I’ve told you that before— _seriously_ flirt with everyone. I don’t lead my friends on.”  Steve hadn’t felt this breathless since he had had asthma, almost 75 years ago. “I don’t invite everyone to Thanksgiving with my family.”

“Tony...”

“Look.” Tony stopped a foot in front of Steve, looked up with those eyes that hinted at laughter and fun and pleasure. “I’m sorry in advance. Because I am totally, completely, one hundred percent awful at this sort of thing. And I have the math to back that up. But you know me, I do stupid shit too. So—sorry.” Then he closed the distance between them, reached up and pulled Steve’s head down to meet his.

The full force of Tony’s lips were unlike anything that Steve had ever experienced.  They were anything but stagnant this time—indeed, Steve was suddenly aware of the fact that he was kissing someone with extensive experience.  And, almost instantly, Tony was gently edging Steve’s mouth open with his tongue and the taste of coffee and cinnamon filled him so wholly that it almost distracted him from the fact that his heart was hammering in his chest and that his hands seemed to be moving of their own accord to rest on Tony’s shoulders.

And then Tony was easing away—or his lips were, though he didn’t make a move to pull out of Steve’s grip. “Convinced you yet?”

Words were not exactly Steve’s strong suit at that particular moment. “Tony...” he breathed. Tony laughed, and leaned forward to rest his forehead against Steve’s, his hands moving up to rest on Steve’s waist. He was shaking too, despite his laughter and confidence. It made Steve feel better, that he wasn’t the only one overwhelmed.

“Cap—Steve. I really am bad at this.” His fingers drummed against Steve’s waist, warm and quick. “Ask Pepper. You know how bad I am. I cannot overstate how bad I am. I am—my badness at this stuff is only matched by Thor’s love of poptarts. Or maybe Hulk’s love of smashing. Or Pepper’s of shoes. Or Fury’s of his eyepatch. Or—”

Steve did the only logical thing to shut Tony up and pressed his mouth to Tony’s once again.  Tony made a surprised noise in the back of his throat, which turned quickly into a happily conceding noise as his tongue slid back into Steve’s mouth.

*

“Hey, have you seen Steve or Tony?” Arya looked up at Gendry from her chemistry homework and Catelyn looked up from her bills.  

She and Arya had been sharing the kitchen table, spreading papers out across the surface and slogging their way through the work that neither of them particularly wanted to do.  It was one of the few things that Catelyn shared with her younger daughter—the incapacity to work in a confined space.  When she and Ned had been first married, he had forbidden her outright from using his study because he had gotten sick of going in there and finding the remnants of her work.  Sometime last year, Arya had decided that the desk in her bedroom was too small for her and had come down stairs.

“They’re in the garage,” replied Arya calmly.

“Ok.  Cool.”  Gendry made his way towards the back door before Arya continued,

“You don’t want to go out there right now.”

“What?”

“You don’t want to go out there right now.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Catelyn glanced at her daughter.

“Well,” Arya leaned back in her chair, her hands folding behind her head, “They’ve been out there for a while.”

“And?”

Arya rolled her eyes.  “Oh, come on.  I’m trying to be subtle here.  I’m really not used to it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“They’re making out.  Like hard-core.”

Gendry’s eyebrows shot up.  “Ah.”

Catelyn did her best not to snort.  She turned her attention back to Bran’s medical bills, pleased with herself and—she had to admit—pleased with Tony.

“So, now’s probably not the best time to ask them about getting to New York, and some logistical things.”

“Probably not, no.”

“Right...”  Gendry nodded slowly, then crossed the kitchen again.  Before he reached the door, he looked back and said.  “You’re probably not going to be in New York anytime soon, right?”

Arya grimaced slightly.  “Probably not.  I mean, _maybe_ over Christmas Break, but that will depend on mom and dad.”  She gestured vaguely across the table at Catelyn.

“Talk to your father about it.  He usually prefers going to Canada in the winter.”

“He would,” sighed Arya.  “Crazy, cold-obsessed nitwit.”

“Arya.”

Arya smiled rather as she had when she was two and was just learning that she had to be nice to other children in the playground.

“Right,” said Gendry.  “So, I guess...”

Catelyn got up from the table and went to fill a glass of water.  When she had turned on the faucet, she noticed Arya scribbling on a piece of paper.  “This is my Skype account,” she was saying.  “I know Uncle Tony’s a lot to deal with.  If you ever need advice, don’t hesitate to call.”  She shot Gendry a significant look, which Catelyn pretended not to see.  She had a much harder time pretending not to see the casual way that Arya glanced at her, and then smiled a small smile at Gendry.

Oh, she would _kill_ Tony Stark.

*

“So...it turns out the guy behind the turkeys was actually a thing...” Tony had drifted into the living room, carrying a briefcase.  “We kind of have to go.”

Ned glanced up at his brother from _Jane Eyre_.  “You mean to say that his attack on Brooklyn was but the first in a string of nefarious plots?”

“Yeah.  Looks that way.”

“Huh.”

“I know, right?”

Steve strode in full uniform. Cat took a moment to smile at the hand that came to rest easily on Tony’s waist. “We’re very sorry, but there’s a situ—”

“Tony told us.” Ned rose, Benjen looked up from his paperwork, and Cat walked to the door to yell upstairs.

“Kids! Come say a quick goodbye to Uncle Tony!”

Sansa was the first one in. “I thought he wasn’t leaving until—Oh. Hello, Steve.”

Catelyn did not know how she should feel about the way that Sansa drank in Steve in spandex.  On the one hand, Steve was taken, on the other hand...

Sometimes, she wished that her children would never grow up.  But she knew that that ship had sailed.

“Eyes off, girlie,” Tony warned Sansa with a grin. “We have big kid things to do. We have evil turkeys to fight.”

“More of them?”

“Yep.  This time, in Pittsburgh.”

“Do you have to save it?”

“‘Fraid so.  Those poor Pennsylvanians don’t know how to fend for themselves.”

“Tony...”

Tony grinned up at Steve, reached up to ruffle his hair. “Come now, Cap, you know I believe very strongly in saving all cities, no matter how much they need a good economic uplift.”

“Good.” Steve’s smile was soft and fond. It made Cat happy that someone could, would, look at Tony that way. That Tony could look back at someone that way. Maybe he was finally growing up.

“You’re leaving?” Gendry was standing there, trying to sound as neutral as possible. Arya peeked in behind him, her face stormy.

“I’ll get you a bus ticket,” said Ned, “They’re off being heroic.  I’m left with the gruntwork.  It’s just how it happens.”

“Cheers,” grinned Gendry. “Then have fun fighting turkeys, I guess.”

“Yeah.  Don’t worry about it.  We’ll talk in New York.  When you get there, find Pepper. She’ll know what to do with you.” Tony bounced up and down on the heels of his feet, clearly already ready to leave. Even Steve was politely shifting from leg to leg.

“I’ll give you her phone number,” inserted Ned.

“When will you be back?” demanded Rickon.

Tony crouched down slightly so that their eyes were on a level, and ruffled Rickon’s hair. “I’ll be back when I’m back, you greedy little brat.”

“I’ll be in New York over Martin Luther King weekend,” said Robb.  “Model UN has a thing. See you then?”

“Depends. Are you bringing Theon?” Tony waggled his eyebrows.

“No.”  Robb did his best not to yelp.  Catelyn had to commend him for that.

“Then for sure, kid. We’ll see if you can stand up to a night on the town with Thor.”

“Can I come?” asked Rickon. “I want to meet Thor!”

“No.  I meant it.  You’re never meeting him.”  Tony took a moment and counted.  “Where’s the cripple?” he demanded.

“Bran!” hollered Rickon.

“Coming!” And Catelyn heard his footsteps.  Her heart sang.  Bran was running, running down the stairs just in time to follow them out the front door, his puppy in his arms.  “I’ve thought of it!  A name for him!”

“Oh?”

“Summer!  His name’s Summer!”

“Okay, not exactly seasonal, but hey, whatever works.” Tony counted off. “Okay, everyone’s here. Time to go. Anyone want to see something cool?”

“Sure.”  And they followed him outside.  

He put the briefcase on the ground, flipped open the case. He kicked one foot in, bent down and plunged his hand into the glinting red metal, then stood as the plates folded around him, quick and elegant and just a bit flashy. His faceplate folded down, and suddenly it wasn’t Tony there anymore, but Iron Man, with his stylized face and mouth in a grim line. “Cool, right?” came the computerized voice that was almost Tony’s.

“We see that on TV, like, everyday, Uncle Tony,” Arya commented, tongue firmly in cheek.

“Aw, you watch me on TV, bratling?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Be safe, Uncle Tony!” called Sansa from the porch.

“Yeah, yeah, giant turkeys to fight. It’s a—”

“Iron Man, we’ve got to go.” Steve had pulled on his cowl, his shoulders straightening. “Thank you for everything, but—”

“We understand.” Cat nodded, smiled at them. “It was nice meeting you.”

“Very good,” Ned agreed. “Now, bye.”

And with that, Tony casually saluted his brother, grabbed hold of Captain America by the waist, and took off into the sky in a flash of light and smoke.

When they were only a spark in the distance, the Starks turned and made their way back into the house.  Ned took a deep breath, glanced over his shoulder at the place where, a moment before, his brother had stood.  Then he shook himself.  “Yep,” he sighed, and shut the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, folks.
> 
> And if we do say so ourselves (having recently seen _Iron Man 3_ ) we got Tony's dynamic with kids spot on.
> 
> End self-congratulation.
> 
> Also: Since we've been asked -- we are not planning a sequel. Sorry, bros.


End file.
